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Friday, October 17, 2025

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MAIN TRACK
08:30–09:30

Arrival & Coffee

09:30

Talk

Director+

Welcome to LeadingEng New York 2025

A welcome from the host.

+ More

Talk

Welcome to LeadingEng New York 2025

09:30 – 09:54

This session is suitable for:

Director+

A welcome from the host.

  • FEATURING
    Nivia Henry
    Engineering DirectorNetflix

    Nivia is a technologist with over 20 years of engineering and leadership experience.

    Her career path has included nearly every role in tech; but her true passion is inspiring people to do their best work.

    These days Nivia applies her talents as the Defiantly Sparkly Director of Engineering for Netflix’s Growth Product Experiences; the organization that enables Netflix’s multibillion dollar commerce and subscription business. Prior to that she spent 8 years at Spotify, building ads and listener experiences.

    Nivia gives back to the tech community by speaking at, chairing and attending tech conferences.

    Her hobbies include: mentoring Black engineering leaders; reading; and relaxing on her farm with her hubby Andre and their feline overlord Zuko.

    View Nivia’s profile
09:55

Icebreaker

Icebreaker activity

Start the day by connecting with your peers in a short exercise designed to spark conversation and build rapport.

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Icebreaker

Icebreaker activity

09:55 – 10:04

Start the day by connecting with your peers in a short exercise designed to spark conversation and build rapport.
10:05

Talk

Director+

Taking a seat in the C-Suite: Transitioning from the highest-level operational roles to the executive team

A look at the transition to executive leadership, examining the skills, mindset, and priorities needed to succeed.

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Talk

Taking a seat in the C-Suite: Transitioning from the highest-level operational roles to the executive team

10:05 – 10:29

This session is suitable for:

Director+

There’s significant literature around the topic of engineering management – we’re in a golden age of understanding operational roles in the technology disciplines. However, there’s scant writing or discussion about moving from those operational roles, e.g., Director or VP across the thermocline to executive roles like CTO, CIO or Head of Engineering.

What skills and behaviors that make a strong manager will also support a successful executive – and what can hold you back? How should you balance operational versus strategic concerns? Should you spend more time with your team, your peers, your boss(es) or your supervisory board? How have others met this challenge?

This talk will address all of these concerns, as well as deliver the fundamentals of a roadmap to navigating the transition from manager to executive successfully.

  • FEATURING
    Jeremy Bowers
    Chief Technology OfficerPOLITICO

    Jeremy Bowers is POLITICO’s global Chief Technology Officer, where he manages the globally distributed technology team.Bowers comes to POLITICO from the Washington Post where he served as Director of Engineering, leading a team of 40+ engineers supporting newsroom engineering and publishing tools. Prior to the Washington Post, he held various roles at the New York Times, NPR and the St. Petersburg Times.

    Bowers was one of the core developers behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com and was on the team that won an Emmy for his work on “Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt.” He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Becky, and two daughters.

    View Jeremy’s profile
10:35

Talk

Director+

Transforming tradition: The journey to product-led growth

Learn how Dow Jones is embracing a product-first mindset to drive radical transformation and deliver innovative customer and consumer experiences.

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Talk

Transforming tradition: The journey to product-led growth

10:35

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Learn how Dow Jones is embracing a product-first mindset to drive radical transformation and deliver innovative customer and consumer experiences.

For decades, Dow Jones has been a trusted leader in global business and financial news. However, as a legacy organization that continues to experience significant growth in the digital era, its technology org is evolving its operating model from a project-centric approach to a dynamic, product-led culture. In this presentation, Chief Technology Officer Artem Fishman will share how he’s evolved the organization during his tenure and the guiding principles behind its product transformation.

Artem will share what a product-first mindset means in practice, going beyond simple platitudes to discuss the tangible shifts in approach that have led to positive business outcomes. He will dive into how he’s redesigned teams to be more autonomous and empowered, and cover the strategic and executional elements required to scale change across a large, established organization.

Key takeaways

  • Ignoring tech debt slows down delivery and increases risk.
  • Use system health scores to align teams on where to invest.
  • Operational excellence enables faster, safer innovation.
  • FEATURING
    Artem Fishman
    CTODow Jones

    Artem Fishman is chief technology officer at Dow Jones. He oversees a global team of engineers responsible for technology and product rollouts across Dow Jones brands, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and the company’s business intelligence products and services.

    Artem is a veteran technology executive with a long track record of spearheading premier consumer products in the news, media and financial services industries. Prior to joining Dow Jones, he served as senior director of engineering at LinkedIn, where he oversaw the company’s homepage surface and content experiences. He also served as the research & development lead at LinkedIn in New York. Artem has also held senior leadership roles at SoundCloud, Yahoo, Thomson Reuters and The New York Times.

    A graduate of New York University, Artem currently serves as co-chair of the New York CTO Club, an independent, not-for-profit group of senior technologists.

    View Artem ‘s profile
11:00

Talk

Director+

Leadership in AI-assisted engineering

Explore proven leadership strategies for AI-assisted engineering, fostering adoption, productivity, psychological safety, and measurable organizational impact.

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Talk

Leadership in AI-assisted engineering

11:00 – 11:09

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Sponsored by

DX x LeadDev

An overview of the leadership strategies employed by top AI-assisted engineering organizations.

To realize meaningful returns on AI investments, leadership must take accountability and ownership of establishing best practices, enabling engineers, and ensuring proper guardrails are in place. When prompting practice and reflexive AI use is driven from the top down, engineers can align on the highest value use cases and experience peak productivity gains.In this session, Justin Reock, Deputy CTO at DX, will explain what the most effective leaders of AI enabled engineering organizations are doing to drive satisfactory utilization, augmentation, and psychological safety across their teams. Based on interviews, use cases, and data, leaders will walk away with an understanding of how to best lead their teams through mature AI rollouts.

Key takeaways

  • Measuring and improving AI adoption and efficacy
  • Nurturing a psychologically safe AI engineering culture
  • Driving adoption through grassroots initiatives and experimentation
  • FEATURING
    Justin Reock
    Deputy CTODX
    View Justin’s profile
11:10

Group Discussion

Group discussion

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.

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Group Discussion

Group discussion

11:10 – 11:24

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.
11:25–12:10

Morning Break

12:10

Talk

Director+

Building a cost-conscious culture: Technical and team strategies

Discover proven strategies to optimize cloud infrastructure costs and build a cost-aware engineering culture without slowing delivery.

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Talk

Building a cost-conscious culture: Technical and team strategies

12:10 – 12:34

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Practical tips on technical and process strategies to optimize cloud infrastructure costs and create cultural change leading to a more cost-aware team.

From managing escalating cloud costs to achieving significant savings, this talk will cover the proven strategies Strava implemented to optimize our cloud infrastructure costs over the last 18 months. We’ll share effective approaches across networking, compute, and data storage that delivered meaningful reductions in cloud spending. Beyond the technical details, you’ll learn how we successfully aligned our engineering teams around cost optimization while maintaining focus on core product delivery. Whether you’re looking to trim cloud expenses or just build a more cost-aware engineering culture, this session provides actionable insights.

Key takeaways

  • Key metrics to track cloud cost drivers and optimization progress over time
  • Systematic approaches to identify and prioritize cost reduction opportunities across your tech stack
  • Strategies to build cost awareness into your engineering culture without compromising overall development velocity
  • A practical framework for evaluating cost-benefit tradeoffs in future-looking architectural decisions
  • FEATURING
    Elyse Kolker Gordon
    Senior Director of EngineeringStrava

    Elyse Kolker Gordon is a senior engineering leader with extensive experience building and scaling platform teams in consumer technology and cloud software. As a Senior Director leading Strava’s horizontal and platform teams, she specializes in bridging the intersection of business strategy and engineering execution, helping organizations build strong technical foundations that drive product innovation. A sought-after speaker and published author, Elyse shares insights on engineering leadership and building high-performing technical teams.

    View Elyse’s profile
12:35

Talk

Director+

Build features, not fragile foundations

Learn how to balance feature delivery with technical debt reduction to maintain system health, velocity, and long-term stability.

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Talk

Build features, not fragile foundations

12:35 – 13:04

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Learn how balancing feature work with technical debt remediation leads to sustainable software delivery.

Engineering teams often face intense pressure to deliver features fast, but building on a shaky foundation eventually slows things down. This talk explores the hidden cost of neglecting operational excellence and shows how technical debt, if left unmanaged, compromises security, scalability, and team velocity. We’ll unpack why brittle systems are harder to change, debug, and maintain, and how they quietly erode customer trust and developer morale.

Attendees will learn how to assess the health of their systems using qualitative and quantitative inputs, including developer sentiment, customer experience feedback, and usage patterns. We’ll introduce a simple, actionable framework for assigning system health scores and using those scores to drive investment decisions.

Rather than choosing between feature velocity and technical stability, we’ll explore how to balance both, ensuring teams can innovate without trading away long term performance.

  • FEATURING
    André Henry
    Director, Platform EngineeringFleetio

    André Henry is an Engineering Leader with 20+ years of experience across reliability, network engineering, infrastructure, and software. He drives business value by simplifying platforms, reducing technical debt, and enabling high-performing teams. Known for clear communication and pragmatic strategy, André excels in startups and enterprises alike, aligning tech with business goals. He’s passionate about developer productivity, systems performance, and making complex topics actionable for diverse audiences.

    View André’s profile
13:05

Talk

Director+

Engineering leadership playbook, 2025: Three lessons every engineering leader needs this year

Learn three key lessons to lead AI adoption, build remote teams, and strengthen engineering culture.

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Talk

Engineering leadership playbook, 2025: Three lessons every engineering leader needs this year

13:05 – 13:14

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Sponsored by

Revelo LeadDev

Three lessons every engineering leader needs this year – from pacing AI adoption to building resilient, remote-first teams.

2025 is the first year where every engineering leader is also an AI leader, and the ground is still shifting. After interviewing dozens of VPs and CTOs for Tech Teams Today, Revelo CEO Lucas Mendes identified patterns that separate thriving teams from those treading water.

In this 10-minute lightning talk, Lucas focuses on three of the most urgent lessons:

  • How to pace AI adoption deliberately, balancing ROI with risk tolerance and team readiness
  • Why ownership beats output, and how that mindset powers rituals that strengthen remote teams and reduce Zoom fatigue
  • Why top leaders stay close to the work, not by micromanaging but by reinforcing principles – especially for junior engineers

He’ll briefly reflect on why AI alone doesn’t unlock productivity. Human judgment still matters most. Attendees leave with a pragmatic audit worksheet and a 30-day action plan to future-proof culture, process, and team design, with no product pitch.

  • FEATURING
    Lucas Mendes
    Founder and CEORevelo

    Lucas Mendes is the founder and CEO of Revelo, the leading platform that helps US companies find, hire and pay full-time remote software engineers in Latin America. Revelo boasts a network of 400,000 pre-vetted engineers, and has placed developers from 15 LatAm countries in hundreds of US companies. Holding a Computer Engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), Lucas previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company. He holds an MBA from Stanford University.

    View Lucas’s profile
13:15

Group Discussion

Group discussion

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.

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Group Discussion

Group discussion

13:15 – 13:29

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.
13:30–14:50

Lunch

14:50

Talk

Director+

Uncovering silent struggles in leadership roles

A candid session revealing common hidden leadership challenges, with practical strategies to address and overcome them effectively.

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Talk

Uncovering silent struggles in leadership roles

14:50 – 15:04

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Following The Biggest Issue, Alia and Fiona will share the results of the challenges surfaced in the room. They’ll reveal the most common themes leaders are facing and provide practical guidance to help you tackle the issues that matter most.

  • FEATURING
    Fiona Siseman
    Co-founder, Coach & FacilitatorFrank & Eddy Leadership

    Fiona is the cofounder of Frank & Eddy Leadership. She is passionate about fostering authentic, self-aware, and collaborative leadership teams through coaching and facilitating. Prior to founding Frank & Eddy, she spent 7 years at Spotify supporting product and engineering leaders (Sr, Director, VP) to lead through fast-paced change, and building a high-performing senior leadership team in a large Platform Engineering organization (for a period, leading a cross-functional organization of 130 people).

    View Fiona’s profile
  • Alia Rose Connor
    Co-founder, Coach & FacilitatorFrank & Eddy Leadership

    Alia is the cofounder of Frank & Eddy Leadership and is passionate about building collaborative cross-functional product development teams. She is a coach and facilitator, and has been a founder and engineer. Prior to founding Frank & Eddy, she coached at Spotify during 7 years of explosive growth, where she supported product and engineering leaders (Sr, Director, VP) to lead through continual change.

    View Alia’s profile
15:05

Talk

Director+

The AI-augmented team: Rethinking roles, skills, and leadership

Explore how AI assistants and agents are reshaping team structures, required skills, and leadership in modern engineering organizations.

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Talk

The AI-augmented team: Rethinking roles, skills, and leadership

15:05 – 15:34

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Discover how AI assistants and agents are transforming software teams, roles, and leadership models

AI is no longer just a tool – it’s becoming a true collaborator on software teams. In this session, Darva Satcher explores how AI Assistants and Agents are reshaping engineering teams, dissolving traditional role boundaries, and redefining what it means to lead in a modern tech organization.

Attendees will learn how to structure AI-augmented teams that operate more efficiently, embrace new patterns of hybrid human-AI collaboration, and adopt agent-based workflows that scale productivity without scaling headcount. The session dives into the emerging skill sets engineers need – including AI fluency, systems thinking, and critical review of AI-generated work – while also outlining leadership frameworks that foster trust, ethical oversight, and adaptive performance metrics.

Through practical examples, this talk prepares engineering leaders to integrate AI not just as an assistant, but as a working team member.

  • FEATURING
    Darva Satcher
    Director of EngineeringGitLab

    Darva Satcher is the Director of Engineering at GitLab.

    View Darva’s profile
15:35

Talk

Director+

⁠⁠Making AI work for you: Examining and enhancing your developers’ workflows

Learn how to assess, adapt, and optimize developer workflows with AI to enhance collaboration, productivity, and measurable impact.

+ More

Talk

⁠⁠Making AI work for you: Examining and enhancing your developers’ workflows

15:35 – 15:54

This session is suitable for:

Director+

AI has already had an impact on your developers’ workflow with code competition and now is expanding its footprint on the developer lifecycle. The question is: how will your company adopt and adapt to the changes and how do you develop a methodical approach for improving and measuring productivity? This talk proposes an approach to understanding the individual and collaborative developer workflows, modifying them, and finally measuring productivity as you change each piece.

  • FEATURING
    Neha Batra
    VP of Engineering

    Neha Batra is a self-taught programmer that fell into leadership and found her calling. Formerly the VP of Engineering at GitHub, she led Product Engineering across the web, desktop, mobile, and cli and worked on key AI features like Copilot Code Review. Her passion lies in making the tech industry easier to break into and be productive, which is why she focuses her talks and blogs on tactical tips and tricks, like Facilitation 202, Managing your Mentorship, and Delegation.

    She enjoys foodie adventures, planning trips, and collecting national park magnets. If you want to hear her ramble on a topic, ask her about experimenting with manager processes and playbooks or how much she misses Miami and its cafecitos.

    View Neha’s profile
15:55

Group Discussion

Group discussion

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.

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Group Discussion

Group discussion

15:55 – 16:09

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.
16:10–16:50

Afternoon Break

16:50

Talk

Director+

Lessons learned using Generative AI for product development

Discover practical lessons on applying generative AI to product development, including model choices, evaluation methods, integration challenges, and innovation strategies.

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Talk

Lessons learned using Generative AI for product development

16:50 – 17:19

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Generative AI is changing how we build and what’s possible for our users. In this session, Natalie Glance, Chief Engineering Officer at Duolingo, will share lessons learned based on real-world case studies.

You will learn about:

  • The importance of communicating clear principles on the use of AI 
  • Trade-offs in using model APIs vs self-hosting vs on-device
  • Buy vs build vs wait decisions in the face of rapid change
  • Minimizing switching costs, how to decide which model to use and the importance of evals
  • Pros and cons of fine-tuning and custom models
  • The technical and change management challenges of retrofitting systems to use AI
  • How AI turbo-charges 0 to 1 innovation 

Natalie’s experience leading engineering at Duolingo, where AI has transformed the product and user experience, makes her uniquely qualified to share these insights. This session will help you build a new operational model for the AI era.

  • FEATURING
    Natalie Glance
    Chief Engineering OfficerDuolingo

    Natalie is a lifelong learner and seasoned leader with extensive experience at startups and established companies. She’s currently the Chief Engineering Officer at Duolingo.

    At Duolingo, Natalie ensures engineers can help set product direction and strategy. She’s championed a culture of extensive A/B testing, and is excited about the ways generative AI can both build new features and accelerate content creation for these features. She oversees many of the efforts dedicated to scaling Duolingo’s technology to new subjects, like Math and Music.

    Natalie is passionate about mentorship and education. She co-founded the Int’l AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), which offers an annual Adamic-Glance Distinguished Young Researcher Award for a promising young independent researcher in the field computational social science in the early stage of their career.

    View Natalie’s profile
17:20

Talk

Director+

Beyond sentiment: A practical framework for evaluating and growing the leaders who report to you

A practical framework for evaluating and growing the people managers who report to you through impact, competencies, and systems.

  • Meg Adams The New York Times
    Senior Director of Engineering
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Talk

Beyond sentiment: A practical framework for evaluating and growing the leaders who report to you

17:20 – 17:44

This session is suitable for:

Director+

This talk offers a practical, opinionated framework for evaluating and growing the people managers who report to you, using a model that goes beyond sentiment and 360s to focus on observable impact, leadership competencies, and the systems you all operate within.

“Engineering leaders are often asked to evaluate and develop managers based on indirect signals: team sentiment, 360 feedback, engagement surveys, or the occasional skip-level. But these signals—while valuable—rarely tell the full story. Managers who are well-liked may be avoiding hard conversations; those delivering results may be holding their teams together with unsustainable effort. Without direct observation, senior leaders risk rewarding surface-level traits while missing the deeper work of effective management.

This talk introduces a practical framework for evaluating leadership against impact and competencies. We’ll explore how to embed observational shadowing as a leadership development tool, offering a clearer view into how managers are actually leading day-to-day. We’ll talk about translating team metrics into actionable feedback. Finally, we’ll cover how to translate those insights into high-leverage coaching, targeted interventions, and systemic improvement. Attendees will walk away with language, structure, and tools for developing stronger leaders—and stronger teams—at scale.

Key takeaways

  • What matters when assessing leadership performance?
  • What observable competencies should I expect from my managers—and how do I coach to them?
  • How can shadowing be used to gain real insight into someone’s leadership system?
  • How do I manage developing individuals and improving the systems they’re building in real-time (rather than waiting for the results of long feedback cycles)?
  • FEATURING
    Meg Adams
    Senior Director of EngineeringThe New York Times

    Meg Adams is an experienced technology leader sought out by multi-billion dollar companies like Estée Lauder, Etsy, and Condé Nast to create cultures of high performance and high engagement within their engineering teams.

    She is passionate about deepening the community of workplaces and infusing the everyday with joy and purpose, all while increasing profitability. Meg is also a trusted advisor to remarkable women when it comes to career development and negotiation.

    View Meg’s profile
17:45

Group Discussion

Group discussion

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.

+ More

Group Discussion

Group discussion

17:45 – 17:49

Reflect on what you’ve just learned, and exchange insights and perspectives with the people at your table.
17:50

Talk

Director+

End of day wrap-up

Closing thoughts from the host.

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Talk

End of day wrap-up

17:50 – 17:59

This session is suitable for:

Director+

Closing thoughts from the host.

  • FEATURING
    Nivia Henry
    Engineering DirectorNetflix

    Nivia is a technologist with over 20 years of engineering and leadership experience.

    Her career path has included nearly every role in tech; but her true passion is inspiring people to do their best work.

    These days Nivia applies her talents as the Defiantly Sparkly Director of Engineering for Netflix’s Growth Product Experiences; the organization that enables Netflix’s multibillion dollar commerce and subscription business. Prior to that she spent 8 years at Spotify, building ads and listener experiences.

    Nivia gives back to the tech community by speaking at, chairing and attending tech conferences.

    Her hobbies include: mentoring Black engineering leaders; reading; and relaxing on her farm with her hubby Andre and their feline overlord Zuko.

    View Nivia’s profile
18:00–19:00

Networking Mixer

INTERACTIVE SESSIONS
11:35

Next Steps AMA

Becoming a VP of Engineering

Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for Becoming a VP of Engineering

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Next Steps AMA

Becoming a VP of Engineering

11:35 – 11:39

Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for Becoming a VP of Engineering

  • FEATURING
    Melissa Young
    SVP, EngineeringVox Media

    Melissa Young is SVP of Engineering at Vox Media, where she leads a multidisciplinary engineering organization spanning publishing platforms, infrastructure, advertising technology, data, consumer revenue, and commerce. She has over 15 years of experience working and leading in media technology enterprises ranging from small private publishers to large media conglomerates. Melissa thrives at the intersection of technical strategy, operational optimization and organizational leadership and will forever champion empowering engineers and leaders to create and support high-trust, high-performing teams.

    View Melissa’s profile
  • Boomie Odumade
    Senior Engineering LeaderTechBees

    Boomie Odumade is a dynamic senior software engineering leader with over 20 years of experience in technology, including building teams, scaling systems, and growing organizations. She also provides career coaching. She was most recently Senior Director of Engineering at a small company. Previously, she led engineering teams at NPR, Capital One, and Accenture, and co-founded Nexercise, a mobile fitness startup. Boomie is passionate about mentoring youth and supporting future STEM leaders. She holds a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, a Master’s in Computer Science, and an MBA from Wharton.

    View Boomie’s profile
  • Shawn Gandhi
    SVP Customer Engineering & Country Managing Director, CanadaPythian

    Shawn is a distinguished technology executive with a proven track record of scaling businesses from startup to hypergrowth. He founded and led AWS Canada, building its business and data centers to enable Canadian enterprises to transition to the cloud. His career highlights also include leading enterprise adoption for Amazon Web Services in New York and serving as chief architect for the Royal Bank of Canada.

    Returning to Ottawa, he established the AWS Solutions Global AI Hub and ran engineering for multiple businesses at Shopify. Currently, as the Canadian Country Manager for Pythian, Shawn helps businesses leverage data, AI, and cloud services for transformational growth. He is a recognized community leader, recognized for his contributions to both business and non-profits.

    View Shawn’s profile
  • Taofeek Rabiu
    VP EngineeringEtsy

    Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Taofeek is a veteran technology leader and brings more than 25 years of experience building high performance teams and award winning products across multiple industries. Currently, Taofeek is VP Engineering and interim VP Product for Etsy’s Enablement groups – which are the core platforms that support Etsy’s Buyer and Seller apps, and it’s Data, ML and Experimentation platforms.

    Prior to Etsy Taofeek was Chief Technology Officer for Maker’s Row, a marketplace startup.

    View Taofeek’s profile
11:40

Office Hours

Meet the speakers

Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.

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Office Hours

Meet the speakers – 11:40

11:40 – 12:09

Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.

  • FEATURING
    Artem Fishman
    CTODow Jones

    Artem Fishman is chief technology officer at Dow Jones. He oversees a global team of engineers responsible for technology and product rollouts across Dow Jones brands, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and the company’s business intelligence products and services.

    Artem is a veteran technology executive with a long track record of spearheading premier consumer products in the news, media and financial services industries. Prior to joining Dow Jones, he served as senior director of engineering at LinkedIn, where he oversaw the company’s homepage surface and content experiences. He also served as the research & development lead at LinkedIn in New York. Artem has also held senior leadership roles at SoundCloud, Yahoo, Thomson Reuters and The New York Times.

    A graduate of New York University, Artem currently serves as co-chair of the New York CTO Club, an independent, not-for-profit group of senior technologists.

    View Artem ‘s profile
  • Justin Reock
    Deputy CTODX
    View Justin’s profile
  • Jeremy Bowers
    Chief Technology OfficerPOLITICO

    Jeremy Bowers is POLITICO’s global Chief Technology Officer, where he manages the globally distributed technology team.Bowers comes to POLITICO from the Washington Post where he served as Director of Engineering, leading a team of 40+ engineers supporting newsroom engineering and publishing tools. Prior to the Washington Post, he held various roles at the New York Times, NPR and the St. Petersburg Times.

    Bowers was one of the core developers behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com and was on the team that won an Emmy for his work on “Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt.” He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Becky, and two daughters.

    View Jeremy’s profile
12:20
12:00

Roundtable

How to measure the impact of GenAI tooling investments?

Conversations on quantifying the impact of GenAI investments and how to communicate those insights to your leadership team.

+ More

Roundtable

How to measure the impact of GenAI tooling investments?

12:00 – 12:00

Sponsored by

DX x LeadDev

Conversations on quantifying the impact of GenAI investments and how to communicate those insights to your leadership team.

Discussion will include:

  • Defining the right metrics to measure productivity gains
  • Crafting a compelling narrative that balances realism with optimism
  • Exploring real-world business cases for GenAI

  • FEATURING
    Justin Reock
    Deputy CTODX
    View Justin’s profile
  • Annyce Davis
    VP of EngineeringMeetUp

    Annyce is currently Vice President of Engineering at Meetup. At Meetup, she helps create the future of real community where people show up, do things, and actually talk to each other. Previously, Annyce was the Software Group Lead at a social impact startup, Zola Electric. There they provided clean, transformative energy to households that suffered from expensive, unreliable grids. Annyce got to help impact the lives of people across Africa by developing a high-quality Android application that was used by the entire sales and service force.

    Annyce is currently in Maryland, USA. However, she travels around the world speaking at conferences; so if you happen to cross paths, she is always up for a coffee!

    View Annyce’s profile
12:00

Roundtable

How can you leverage AI to improve the developer experience across your organization?

Conversations on how senior engineering leaders can apply AI tools and practices to elevate the developer experience, unlock productivity, and reduce friction across teams.

+ More

Roundtable

How can you leverage AI to improve the developer experience across your organization?

12:00 – 12:00

Sponsored by

Augment Code LeadDev

A roundtable on how senior engineering leaders can apply AI tools and practices to elevate the developer experience, unlock productivity, and reduce friction across teams.

Discussion includes:

  • Identifying where AI can provide the greatest impact on developer workflows and satisfaction
  • Balancing innovation with trust, governance, and responsible use of AI
  • Aligning AI adoption with organizational goals and engineering culture
  • Scaling AI-enabled practices sustainably across large and distributed teams
  • FEATURING
    Chris Kelly
    Head of Developer ExperienceAugment Code

    Chris is the head of developer experience, working across Augment to make building software better for every developer. Chris has been making developers happier and more productive for 15 years at innovative companies like New Relic, GitHub, Salesforce, and FireHydrant.

    View Chris’s profile
12:00

Roundtable

Managing managers: How to become an organizational multiplier

Conversations on evolving your leadership style when managing managers.

+ More

Roundtable

Managing managers: How to become an organizational multiplier

12:00 – 12:00

Conversations on evolving your leadership style when managing managers.

Discussion will include:

  • Shifting your approach from “hands-on manager” to guide or coach
  • Finding the balance between empowerment and accountability
  • Learning how to delegate effectively
  • FEATURING
    Suzan Bond
    Founder & CEOConstellary

    Suzan Bond is the founder and CEO of Constellary. With nearly two decades in tech, Suzan has worked with hundreds of engineering leaders and leadership teams to help them navigate change and meet the challenges of organizational leadership. Her work these days includes preparing new directors for the role, coaching senior engineering leaders and creating cohesive leadership teams.

    View Suzan’s profile
12:00

Roundtable

Dispelling the speed vs safety myth

Conversations on balancing speed and safety in engineering while removing bottlenecks, scaling with AI, and measuring meaningful business impact.

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Roundtable

Dispelling the speed vs safety myth

12:00 – 12:00

Sponsored by

AI has changed the game, and you can now move fast and not break things, but only with a solid plan and guardrails, and not just vibes.

Discussion will include:

  • Identifying and removing bottlenecks to engineering velocity
  • Balancing speed with resilience and long-term reliability
  • Where automation and AI can (and can’t) help you scale effectively
  • Metrics that demonstrate real impact across engineering and the business
  • FEATURING
    Jemiah Sius
    VP, Market Strategy and Developer RelationsNew Relic

    Jemiah Sius is the VP of Market Strategy and Developer Relations at New Relic, within the Growth team. He leads a global organization focused on improving developer enablement and advocating for the importance of building and maintaining reliable software systems. His current areas of expertise include:

    • Scaling developer engagement programs and partnerships
    • Developing open-source applications and code examples
    • Creating technical content and documentation
    View Jemiah’s profile
  • Michael Winslow
    Director of EngineeringAmazon Music

    Michael Winslow picked up his love for programming when he was 10 years old writing GW-Basic code on his Tandy-1000. With his passion for designing simple solutions to complex problems, Michael has played key roles at companies like Aramark, Ortho-McNeil, Oracle and Xfinity Mobile. He is a seasoned international public speaker who enjoys using his platform to uplift engineers and create powerfully diverse teams in technology. Michael is currently a DevOps advocate, Agile enthusiast, and transformational people-leader in the Technology industry.

    View Michael’s profile
13:45

Office Hours

Meet the speakers

Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.

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Office Hours

Meet the speakers – 13:45

13:45 – 14:14

If you’re inspired by a talk, want to learn more, or just want to chat about it with other folks, head to our Office Hours area where our speakers will be waiting for you.

  • FEATURING
    André Henry
    Director, Platform EngineeringFleetio

    André Henry is an Engineering Leader with 20+ years of experience across reliability, network engineering, infrastructure, and software. He drives business value by simplifying platforms, reducing technical debt, and enabling high-performing teams. Known for clear communication and pragmatic strategy, André excels in startups and enterprises alike, aligning tech with business goals. He’s passionate about developer productivity, systems performance, and making complex topics actionable for diverse audiences.

    View André’s profile
  • Lucas Mendes
    Founder and CEORevelo

    Lucas Mendes is the founder and CEO of Revelo, the leading platform that helps US companies find, hire and pay full-time remote software engineers in Latin America. Revelo boasts a network of 400,000 pre-vetted engineers, and has placed developers from 15 LatAm countries in hundreds of US companies. Holding a Computer Engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), Lucas previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company. He holds an MBA from Stanford University.

    View Lucas’s profile
  • Elyse Kolker Gordon
    Senior Director of EngineeringStrava

    Elyse Kolker Gordon is a senior engineering leader with extensive experience building and scaling platform teams in consumer technology and cloud software. As a Senior Director leading Strava’s horizontal and platform teams, she specializes in bridging the intersection of business strategy and engineering execution, helping organizations build strong technical foundations that drive product innovation. A sought-after speaker and published author, Elyse shares insights on engineering leadership and building high-performing technical teams.

    View Elyse’s profile
14:15

Next Steps AMA

The path to CTO

Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for the path to CTO

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Next Steps AMA

The path to CTO

14:15 – 14:44

Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for the path to CTO

  • FEATURING
    Dilip Krishna
    Managing Director and Global CTO for SustainabilityDeloitte

    Dilip Krishna is a Managing Director and Global CTO for Sustainability, responsible for setting Deloitte’s technology vision as well as engineering and operating software solutions using the latest Gen AI, automation and cloud technology to serve clients with their sustainability initiatives. Dilip also leads Greenspace Tech, an AI-enabled climate-tech advisory that Deloitte uses to help clients execute climate strategies.

    In these roles, he brings his 30 years of technology, analytics, consulting and industry experience to helping clients effectively apply new and disruptive technology to effect transformative business changes using AI/analytics/big data, cloud and cyber security. Prior to Deloitte, Dilip served as a partner at Teradata Corporation where he oversaw the Professional Services practice in financial services, working closely with large banking clients to implement
    some of its largest analytics systems. He has worked with government agencies in regulation and transparency, including being called upon to offer expert testimony to the Financial Services Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives.

    In addition, Dilip has been widely published and quoted in the areas of sustainability technology, AI and automation. He is a senior editor and contributing author of the Handbook of Financial Data and Risk Information (Cambridge University Press).

    View Dilip’s profile
  • Allison McHenry
    CTODaily Kos

    Allison McHenry is the CTO at Daily Kos. She has been a technical people leader at companies such as The Daily Beast, Meta, and The New York Times over the last ten years.

    View Allison’s profile
  • Tramale Turner
    CTOFloat Financial

    Tramale Turner is a distinguished technology leader and engineering manager with extensive experience in building and scaling high-performing teams. Known for innovative leadership approaches and deep technical expertise, Tramale has made significant contributions to the software engineering community.

    View Tramale’s profile
  • Kevin Goldsmith
    CTODistroKid

    Kevin Goldsmith is the Chief Technology Officer at DistroKid with over 28 years of experience as a developer, software architect, technology manager, and senior technology executive.

    View Kevin’s profile
14:50
12:00

Roundtable

Building and leading tech teams in 2025

Conversations on navigating the strategic shifts redefining engineering leadership, from AI-driven productivity to global talent access and evolving workplace mandates.

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Roundtable

Building and leading tech teams in 2025

12:00 – 12:00

Sponsored by

Revelo LeadDev

A roundtable on navigating the strategic shifts redefining engineering leadership, from AI-driven productivity to global talent access and evolving workplace mandates.

Discussion includes:

  • Leveraging AI tools to build and scale high-performing teams
  • Securing and scaling access to world-class talent in an uncertain policy environment
  • Aligning leadership approaches to sustain performance through return-to-office pressures and changing team dynamics
  • FEATURING
    Kathleen Yanolatos
    SVP TechnologyExos

    Kathleen is a technology leader with over 15 years of experience leading teams at startups and large organization. She is currently the SVP of Technology at Exos, the global leader in human performance. Kathleen is passionate about helping engineering teams understand their business so that they can drive significant business impact.

    Kathleen holds a bachelor’s in Computer Science from Boston University. Outside of work, she enjoys fitness, cooking, studying Mandarin, and all there is in her hometown of New York City.

    View Kathleen’s profile
  • Lucas Mendes
    Founder and CEORevelo

    Lucas Mendes is the founder and CEO of Revelo, the leading platform that helps US companies find, hire and pay full-time remote software engineers in Latin America. Revelo boasts a network of 400,000 pre-vetted engineers, and has placed developers from 15 LatAm countries in hundreds of US companies. Holding a Computer Engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), Lucas previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company. He holds an MBA from Stanford University.

    View Lucas’s profile
12:00

Roundtable

Training jet pack pilots, not building drones: How to build AI-enabled teams

Discussion on how engineering leaders can build “jet pack pilot” teams – engineers skilled at using AI to move faster and smarter without losing control of quality or direction.

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Roundtable

Training jet pack pilots, not building drones: How to build AI-enabled teams

12:00 – 12:00

Sponsored by

Jellyfish LeadDev

Discussion on how engineering leaders can build “jet pack pilot” teams – engineers skilled at using AI to move faster and smarter without losing control of quality or direction.

Discussion includes:

  • How to upskill engineers to effectively use AI tools in daily workflows
  • Frameworks for adapting downstream processes (PR reviews, testing, architecture) for increased code generation
  • How to rethink project planning and execution to leverage AI’s strengths while mitigating weaknesses
  • Tip for balancing speed, effectiveness, and long-term maintainability in an AI-driven environment

  • FEATURING
    Luke Stevens
    Director of EngineeringJellyfish

    Luke is a Director of Engineering at Jellyfish, where he talks constantly about words, curiosity, and caching. He believes in you.

    View Luke’s profile
  • Allison Malloy
    Director of EngineeringShopify

    Allison Malloy is the Director of Engineering for Shopify’s Merchandising product area which includes the search & discovery experience, products and pricing, and supporting merchants’ selling strategies. Over the course of her 4 years at Shopify, she had led a few different areas: the Inventory Management team and Shopify Fulfillment Network’s Delivery Infrastructure team focused on providing 2-day delivery through advanced inventory management and distribution. Prior to joining Shopify, Allison spent many years in the defence and aerospace sector, including leading the engineering effort at SkyDrop (prev. Flirtey), a drone delivery company; working in a variety of leadership and development roles at Kongsberg Geospatial and General Dynamics.

     

    View Allison ‘s profile
15:15

The Trusted Trio

The Trusted Trio

Bring a challenge, share your experience, and gain practical insights from fellow leaders facing similar questions

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The Trusted Trio

The Trusted Trio

15:15 – 16:14

Bring a challenge, share your experience, and gain practical insights from fellow leaders facing similar questions.

In this structured peer-consulting session, you’ll bring a real leadership challenge and work it through with a small group of peers. Together, you’ll exchange perspectives, share hard-won lessons, and uncover new approaches. You’ll leave with fresh ideas to take back to your team, and a stronger sense of connection with fellow leaders facing similar challenges

  • FEATURING
    Fiona Siseman
    Co-founder, Coach & FacilitatorFrank & Eddy Leadership

    Fiona is the cofounder of Frank & Eddy Leadership. She is passionate about fostering authentic, self-aware, and collaborative leadership teams through coaching and facilitating. Prior to founding Frank & Eddy, she spent 7 years at Spotify supporting product and engineering leaders (Sr, Director, VP) to lead through fast-paced change, and building a high-performing senior leadership team in a large Platform Engineering organization (for a period, leading a cross-functional organization of 130 people).

    View Fiona’s profile
  • Alia Rose Connor
    Co-founder, Coach & FacilitatorFrank & Eddy Leadership

    Alia is the cofounder of Frank & Eddy Leadership and is passionate about building collaborative cross-functional product development teams. She is a coach and facilitator, and has been a founder and engineer. Prior to founding Frank & Eddy, she coached at Spotify during 7 years of explosive growth, where she supported product and engineering leaders (Sr, Director, VP) to lead through continual change.

    View Alia’s profile
16:25

Office Hours

Meet the speakers – 16:25

Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.

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Office Hours

Meet the speakers – 16:25

16:25 – 16:44

If you’re inspired by a talk, want to learn more, or just want to chat about it with other folks, head to our Office Hours area where our speakers will be waiting for you.

  • FEATURING
    Darva Satcher
    Director of EngineeringGitLab

    Darva Satcher is the Director of Engineering at GitLab.

    View Darva’s profile
  • Natalie Glance
    Chief Engineering OfficerDuolingo

    Natalie is a lifelong learner and seasoned leader with extensive experience at startups and established companies. She’s currently the Chief Engineering Officer at Duolingo.

    At Duolingo, Natalie ensures engineers can help set product direction and strategy. She’s championed a culture of extensive A/B testing, and is excited about the ways generative AI can both build new features and accelerate content creation for these features. She oversees many of the efforts dedicated to scaling Duolingo’s technology to new subjects, like Math and Music.

    Natalie is passionate about mentorship and education. She co-founded the Int’l AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), which offers an annual Adamic-Glance Distinguished Young Researcher Award for a promising young independent researcher in the field computational social science in the early stage of their career.

    View Natalie’s profile
  • Meg Adams
    Senior Director of EngineeringThe New York Times

    Meg Adams is an experienced technology leader sought out by multi-billion dollar companies like Estée Lauder, Etsy, and Condé Nast to create cultures of high performance and high engagement within their engineering teams.

    She is passionate about deepening the community of workplaces and infusing the everyday with joy and purpose, all while increasing profitability. Meg is also a trusted advisor to remarkable women when it comes to career development and negotiation.

    View Meg’s profile
  • Neha Batra
    VP of Engineering

    Neha Batra is a self-taught programmer that fell into leadership and found her calling. Formerly the VP of Engineering at GitHub, she led Product Engineering across the web, desktop, mobile, and cli and worked on key AI features like Copilot Code Review. Her passion lies in making the tech industry easier to break into and be productive, which is why she focuses her talks and blogs on tactical tips and tricks, like Facilitation 202, Managing your Mentorship, and Delegation.

    She enjoys foodie adventures, planning trips, and collecting national park magnets. If you want to hear her ramble on a topic, ask her about experimenting with manager processes and playbooks or how much she misses Miami and its cafecitos.

    View Neha’s profile
16:55
12:00

Roundtable

Tackling tech debt: How to identify, quantify, and decide when to pay it down

Conversations on how senior engineering leaders can evaluate and manage technical debt to drive long-term engineering effectiveness and organizational impact.

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Roundtable

Tackling tech debt: How to identify, quantify, and decide when to pay it down

12:00 – 12:00

Sponsored by

Minware LeadDev

Conversations on how senior engineering leaders can evaluate and manage technical debt to drive long-term engineering effectiveness and organizational impact.

Discussion includes:

  • Identifying and categorizing different types of technical debt across systems and teams
  • Quantifying the cost and trade-offs of tech debt for better decision-making
  • Communicating debt impact to executives and stakeholders in business terms
  • Establishing frameworks for prioritizing when to pay down debt versus when to defer
  • FEATURING
    Kevin Borders
    Founder & CEOMinware
    View Kevin’s profile
  • Dan Na
    VP of EngineeringImprint

    Dan Na is a VP of Engineering at Imprint in NYC. Previously he was an Engineering Director at Squarespace. He loves learning and teaching in a collaborative environment and solving both the technical and people problems of shipping software. He’s a weather-agnostic iced coffee drinker, a mediocre golfer, an NBA basketball fan and loves spending time with his family.

    View Dan’s profile
12:00

Roundtable

Growing your influence: How to become a trusted Executive Partner

A roundtable on communication and building strong relationships and influence with executives and boards.

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Roundtable

Growing your influence: How to become a trusted Executive Partner

12:00 – 12:00

A roundtable on communication and building strong relationships and influence with executives and boards.

Discussion includes:

  • Communicating and building relationships with your CEO and executive team peers
  • Effectively influencing the Board
  • Influencing organizational goals, strategies, and outcomes
  • FEATURING
    Yvette Pasqua
    CTOYvette Tech
    Yvette has 25 years experience in technology and product development, leading multiple startups and international companies through scaling technology, products, and AI/data platforms that drove revenue, margin, and user growth. She has built and scaled products from 0 to 1 startups to 50MM users in 192 countries. Yvette has worked across multiple industries and specializes in healthcare, B2B/B2C SaSS, and AI/data.
    View Yvette’s profile