Engineering Founders
Episodes
CEO as Experiment Officer, Design Partner Personas & Rebranding w/ Sha Ma @ Topogy
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sha Ma (CEO & Founder @ Topogy) deconstructs the concept of CEO as the “chief experiment officer” / “chief everything officer,” detailing how ...
Why founders should invest in coaching, communication & leadership mechanisms before you scale w/ James Birchler
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Founders often delay leadership coaching until a major crisis hits, leading to significant costs in productivity, team churn, and poor decisions. In t...
Balancing shifting priorities, leveraging your founder network, and navigating cost vs. value w/ Sumeet Vaidya @ Crafting
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we cover some of the most important founder challenges, including engineering management, prioritization / time management principles...
Early team building and pivoting to competitive advantage as a solo founder w/ Tony Dong @ Propel
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tony Dong (Founder & CEO @ Propel) shares how he navigated the early days of solo founding, hired eight engineers in a month, and rapidly built early ...
Building insight engines, emotionally intelligent AI products & blending PLG / enterprise GTM w/ Aiswarya Sankar @ Entelligence.AI
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build an AI product that engineers actually enjoy? ****Aiswarya Sankar, co-founder of Entelligence.AI, reveals how her team is creating an ...
The Startup Epoch: Rethinking Company Building & Defensibility in an AI World w/ Craig McLuckie @ Stacklok
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is reshaping the fundamental economics of startups—lowering product development costs, compressing GTM cycles, and rewriting the rules of competi...
Building platforms, ecosystems & open-source communities: Lessons from Viam & MongoDB w/ Eliot Horowitz @ Viam
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build a platform that accelerates innovation by 10x-100x? Eliot Horowitz (CEO & Founder @ Viam) shares how insights from building MongoDB a...
From early days to IPO: Scaling leadership, enterprise growth, product ownership, & outgrowing your failure modes w/ Jon Hyman @ Braze
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Hyman (Co-Founder and CTO @ Braze) shares the pivotal moments that shaped the company - from being the only person on call in the early years to i...
Shifting from founder-led sales to repeatable GTM, differentiating on responsiveness/customer support & the art vs. science of product building w/ Stephen Whitworth @ incident.io
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Whitworth (Co-Founder & CEO @ incident.io) joins us to discuss strategically differentiating your product based on responsiveness / customer s...
Pricing is the API Between Your Business Model and Customers & Great Product Experiences are Made in the Margins w/ Michael Grinich @ WorkOS
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ABOUT MICHAEL GRINICHMichael is the founder and CEO of WorkOS, a developer platform that enables companies to become Enterprise Ready through features...
GTM Insights from Top DevTool companies w/ David Mytton @ Arcjet & Console
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Mytton (CEO @ Arcjet & Co-founder @ Console) shares insights on “what makes a great DevTool company!” We unpack lessons on bootstrapping vs....
Inspiring BIG ideas and deconstructing ambitious projects into smaller questions, core tech, and POCs w/ Ivan Poupyrev & Jamie Lien @ Archetype AI
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Engineering Founders, Archetype AI’s Ivan Poupyrev, Ph.D. (CEO & CTO), and Jaime Lien, Ph.D. (Head of Hardware & Signal Processin...
De-risking the co-founder relationship & experiments to stress-test your partnership w/ Jake Schwartz @ Endorsed
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Schwartz (Co-Founder @ Endorsed) joins us to talk about de-risking the co-founder relationship! We cover how they built in stress-tests to valida...
Scaling costs & being enterprise ready from day 1 w/ Nancy Wang
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nancy Wang, Venture Partner @ Felicis and Former GM @ AWS, joins us to discuss strategies & considerations for scaling costs, becoming enterprise read...
Why you SHOULDN’T become a founder w/ Travis McPeak @ Resourcely
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Engineering Founders, we discuss something we’ve never covered before – why you SHOULDN’T be a founder! Travis McPeak (CEO & ...
Leveraging distribution & community to accelerate your startup w/ Mariane Bekker @ Founders Bay
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mariane Bekker, Founder & CEO @ Founders Bay, joins us to discuss the power of building your distribution channel and network within the startup commu...
Building a mission-driven, bootstrapped business & transitioning from side-gig to full-time: w/ Darian Shimy @ FutureFund
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we cover bootstrapping & transitioning from side gig to full-time, featuring Darian Shimy, Founder @ FutureFund. He shares the origin...
Exploring the differences of hardware & software startups w/ Jessie Frazelle @ Zoo
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we’re talking about the intersection between the software eng & hardware eng communities with Jessie Frazelle, Co-founder & CEO @ Zoo. She sh...
Testing venture-scale ideas, identifying your competitive edge & devtool trends w/ Lee Edwards @ Root Ventures
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lee Edwards, General Partner @ Root Ventures, shares insights on identifying your competitive edge, recommendations for differentiation, and how to ma...
Finding your wedge: enterprise go-to-market & product building strategy w/ Vidya Raman
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Vidya Raman, Partner @ Sorensen Ventures, shares her best practices for developing a strong enterprise GTM strategy & why this is such a challenging t...
Scaling yourself ‘down’ as an engineering leader w/ James Everingham @ Lightspark
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
James Everingham, co-founder and former VP of Engineering @ Lightspark, joins our podcast to share his best tools for scaling yourself down – not up...
Rapidly operating early-stage engineering at global scale, mapping eng workflows to personas & pivoting pricing / business models w/ Scott Woody
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Woody, co-founder and CTO @ Metronome, shares the story of how Metronome, a small startup, made the transition to quickly operate at a global sc...
Execution strategy, proof of concepts & intermediate value-creation steps at deep tech startups w/ Quinn Jacobson
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Quinn Jacobson, Director of the Technical Entrepreneur Coaching Hub (TECH) @ Carnegie Mellon University, joins us to share best practices for implemen...
Cold outreach & strategically expanding your business model into services w/ Jon Perl & Scott Wilson @ QA Wolf
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Perl & Scott Wilson share the origin story of QA Wolf & deconstruct their best practices (and what to avoid) for early-stage cold outreach, how to...
Your eng background is your founder advantage w/ Jorge Torres @ MindsDB
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jorge Torres, CEO & Co-founder @ MindsDB, shares how his lifelong entrepreneurial spirit helped encourage him to pursue engineering & why an engineeri...
Finding opportunity in areas w/ poor implementation, shaping tech innovation into products & creating fast time to value w/ Gaurav Oberoi @ Lexion.ai
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gaurav Oberoi, CEO & Co-founder @ Lexion shares about the research / EIR path from the Allen Institute for AI to founding Lexion. We talk about findin...
Solving the right problems and competing on execution risk w/ Varun Mohan @ Codeium
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do you know if you’re actually solving a problem or building a product people actually want? Varun Mohan, CEO & Co-Founder @ Codeium, joins us t...
Capturing & synthesizing unbiased insights from users, your open source community & yourself w/ James Campbell @ Great Expectations
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this Engineering Founders episode, we sit down with James Campbell, CTO & Co-Founder @ Great Expectations, to discuss his founding journey, conside...
Assessing emerging trends and why your product should go broad vs. narrow w/ Karan Talati @ First Resonance
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Karan Talati (Co-founder & CEO @ First Resonance) joins us to discuss strategies for identifying a market opportunity and some of his...
Open-source to commercial product, repeatable sales models + making your 1st marketing hire w/ Ramiro Berrelleza
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ramiro Berrelleza, Founder and CEO @ Okteto, shares how his company transitioned from an open-source project to a category-creating commercial product...
Overcoming product bias, embracing specificity, growing your user-base & developing extroverted qualities w/ Roni Dover
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Roni Dover, CTO @ Digma, shares the customer communication models and user interview tactics that can help shape your product, how to...
Early-day founding & funding decisions, choosing ideas + using community tools to build a dev-tool company w/ Paul Dix
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Dix, Founder & CTO @ InfluxData, joins us to discuss how to handle the emotional aspects of the founding experience, strategies for engaging with...
Becoming a better strategic contributor & business leader w/ Jessica McKellar
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jessica McKellar, CTO & Founder @ Pilot, shares her story as a serial founder and the lessons that can help you become a more impactf...
Company building in highly competitive industries w/ Rick Song @ Persona
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rick Song, Co-founder & CEO @ Persona, shares the origin story of Persona & what it’s like founding a business in a highly competitive, ultra-regula...
Lessons co-founding and operating an AI/ML company during massive market shifts w/ Jared Roesch
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the CTO & Co-Founder @ OctoML, Jared Roesch shares his experience building a ML company in a rapidly changing product market space. Jared also cove...
Prioritizing & ignoring fires, mastering pivots, unexpected barriers to scale and scaling human-centric elements of your product w/ On Freund
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On Freund, Co-founder & CEO @ Wilco, shares how the value of practice influenced the idea behind Wilco. We also cover what it’s like finding product...
Identifying your internal champion & finding the right data/stories to sell into companies w/ Buchi Reddy Busi Reddy
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Buchi Reddy Busi Reddy, Co-Founder & CEO @ Levo.ai, joins us to reveal how lessons learned as an eng leader at AppDynamics and other Silicon Valley ex...
Gaining early-design partners, converting your first customers, identifying your ICP & default delegating w/ Mahima Chawla
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We cover founder conviction & tips for engaging with investors with Mahima Chawla, Co-Founder & CEO @ Cocoon, who shares the origin story of her compa...
Lessons from building in public & re-discovering product-market fit w/ Charley Ho & Alexander Embiricos
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charley Ho (Co-Founder & CTO) & Alexander Embiricos (Co-Founder & CEO) @ Remotion share their co-founder story, along with how they found, lost, and r...
Company building with 3 co-founders, delineating roles & finding repeatable sales channels w/ Dylan Etkin, Don Brown & Michael Knighten @ Sleuth
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The trio of co-founders from Sleuth – Dylan Etkin, Founder & CEO; Don Brown, Co-Founder & CTO; and Michael Knighten, Co-Founder & COO share their un...
Navigating the new fundraising environment, idea-mazing, relationship pipelines, and overcoming pattern-matching bias w/ Lizzie Matusov
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features Lizzie Matusov, CEO & Co-Founder @ Quotient, who shares her unique founder journey – from Harvard’s dual-degree grad program...
Product primitives, pre/post PMF strategy & co-founder surveys w/ Arya Asemanfar
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Arya Asemanfar, Co-Founder @ Runway, joins us to share how he transitioned from eng leader to co-founder & strategies for both pre & and post-product ...
Google form MVPs, Leveraging Maslow’s Hierarchy in product, & customer acquisition strategies w/ Tri Ahmad Irfan
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tri Ahmad Irfan, Co-Founder & CTO @ Lumina, discusses his journey identifying large-scale problems in the SE Asian market and how they went from a Goo...
Pre-Seed Fundraising Strategy w/ Ihar Mahaniok
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ihar Mahaniok (Managing Partner @ Geek Ventures) lends his expertise from the venture capital / tech startup world to help demystify ...
Building a vertically integrated Saas business from day 1 w/ Sean Stavropoulos @ Boulevard
06 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sean Stavropolous, Co-Founder & CTO @ Boulevard, shares his founder journey and Boulevard’s unique role as a vertically integrated SaaS product! He ...
Pitching & consumer-based go-to-market lessons from ComicCon w/ Chris Pruett @ Jam
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Pruett, Co-Founder @ Jam, shares his leadership journey – transitioning from VPE @ LinkedIn to going all-in on Jam’s mission of entertaining...
Developer experience & building a developer-first company w/ Sagar Batchu @ Speakeasy
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We talk with Sagar Batchu (Co-Founder @ Speakeasy) about his transition from engineering leader to founder, what it means to be a devex company, how h...
Top-down / Bottoms-up sales strategy, pricing, and enterprise product adoption w/ Abi Noda
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Should I build B2C or B2B? Should we implement top-down or a bottoms up sales strategy? How do we think about pricing? These are many of the dilemmas ...
Clarity on product building, business strategy, and activating your network (if you’re anti-networking) w/ Adam Oliner
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we explore the story of Adam Oliner, CEO & Founder @ Graft and discuss his perspectives on building business models, considerations a...
Pre-seed fundraising, pitching investors & dealing with rejection w/ Aaron Erickson & Brian Guthrie
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We deconstruct the recently closed pre-seed fundraising experience of our friends Brian Guthrie & Aaron Erickson (co-founders of Orgspace). Brian & Aa...
Market validation, making demos work at all costs & designing impossible shapes w/ Bradley Rothenberg
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do when your idea is simply too early to market? Bradley Rothenberg (Founder/CEO @ nTopology) shares his journey from watching 3D printing...
Co-founder trust & making major pivots w/ Daniela Miao & Khawaja Shams @ Momento
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do co-founders know when it’s time to pivot? And how do you make sure your team is on board with the new direction? Daniela Miao and Khawaja Sha...
Finding founder-fit, invalidating ideas & startup success factors with Michel Tricot
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you know when—or if—you’re ready to start a company? Michel Tricot (Co-Founder & CEO @ Airbyte) talks with us about how he found the conf...
AI/ML Start-up Trends with Anna Patterson
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first episode of our new series “Engineering Founders” featuring software pioneer Anna Patterson (Founder & Managing Partner @ Gradien...
Welcome to Engineering Founders! The show for engineering leaders making the leap to start their own company!
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is the show for engineering leaders making the leap to start their own company! We dive into the stories, pivotal moments and critical insights f...