Why You Need to Take Risks as an Engineering Leader | GitHub’s VPE Neha Batra
Plus, exactly what to say in code reviews, 5 mistakes new tech leads make, and why startups fail & what we can learn from it.
This week, I sat down with Neha Batra, VP of Engineering for Core Productivity at GitHub to talk about risk. Neha shared how she approaches taking calculated risks in engineering leadership, uses her “risk budget,” and how you can leverage your social capital to take risks that help your career.
Neha also shares her insights on senior engineering leaders' challenges when aligning business needs with talent and product execution. Many leaders will find her framework for strengthening company alignment and engineering efficiency using established communication paths valuable.
“As we work in organizations over time, we accrue social capital. I like to think of that as actually a risk budget, right? Where you can spend some of that risk budget on different bets that you want to make.
The tech world is very forgiving, and they reward people who take those risks and try to make those improvements. If it works really well in your favor, you're able to do things that you could never do before.”
Episode Highlights:
00:26 Frameworks that strengthen company alignment
03:11 How should you channel frustration into creation?
05:58 Conceptualizing your risk budget
12:53 Strategies for building communication pathways
16:04 Conducting AMA's with your team
21:47 How do you get team members to take accountability?
25:27 How do you gather signals from your team?
29:13 Mistakes leaders make you can learn from
36:32 Building curiosity into mundane experiences like dating
The Download
The Download is engineering leadership content we’re reading, watching, and attending that we think you might find valuable.
1. Exactly what to say in code reviews
Code reviews can be volatile if you’re not careful. The last thing you want is paragraph-long comment threads because your feedback wasn’t well received, and your teammates became hostile as a result.
shared 7 techniques to help your upcoming code reviews be more constructive for everyone involved.2. Why startups fail & what we can learn from it
Startup success is never guaranteed, and in today’s market, it feels more difficult than ever. Data-Driven VC offered a statistical analysis dissecting the top reasons startups fail.
and analyze the top 3 reasons startups fail, and share fascinating insights on how and why startups pivot successfully.Starting Your Engineering Metrics Program (Sponsor)
A robust metrics program provides holistic visibility into engineering health, predictable project delivery, and a great dev experience. But it’s not always obvious how to build the right software metrics program for your business.
On May 2nd and May 7th, LinearB will be hosting a workshop where you’ll learn how to:
Decide the right engineering KPIs for your organization
Benchmark against industry standards
Gather actionable insights to identify improvement opportunities
Leverage goals to alleviate bottlenecks
Enable your team with workflow automation
3. 5 mistakes that new tech leads make
The jump to becoming a tech lead is rife with pitfalls that are hard to shake coming from a developer role. Beyond getting used to not coding for 40 hours a week,
defines the 5 most common mistakes as:Frustrated with distractions
Not valuing project management
Expecting to know everything
Under-valuing communication skills
Not managing up
Learn how to avoid these common mistakes here:
4. Protecting GitHub’s 100M Developers with Jacob DePriest
Our last episode with someone in the GitHub ecosystem was at the end of last year where we were joined by their VP and Deputy Chief Security Officer Jacob DePriest.
This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in cybersecurity, AI, and Copilot.
Upcoming Events
Starting Your Engineering Metrics Program
May 2nd or May 7th | Online
Highlights: In this workshop, LinearB will walk you through how to drive an average 47% reduction in cycle time via your engineering metrics program and provide you with free resources and tools to get started.