Episode 42: How I went from "non-technical" to technical leader with Danielle Leong, VP of Engineering at Maca (ex-GitHub, and Twilio)

Teams at Work by BUNCH

In this week’s episode, our co-founder Darja chatted with Danielle Leong, currently VP of Engineering at Maca, working on SaaS pricing insights. She started her career as an early engineer at Twilio, after that Danielle became a Director of Engineering, building a tech team to lead the development of mission-critical services at GitHub. She is a passionate learner and loves mentoring others on their journey, she also has her own photography studio where she captures and amplifies diverse and unique voices. Danielle shared her nontypical career journey, and how she balances her technical and creative sides (and how they complement each other). She also shared her take on leading by example, why failing is healthy, and how to actually apply learnings from the past to solve problems in the present. Danielle believes even if you are early on in your career or come from a different background you always have something to bring to the table, you just gotta believe in yourself and be curious!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why technical talent is made, not born, and the two qualities you actually need to succeed on the tech leadership journey

• How to make sense of all the resources out there, adjust them as a template to fit the needs of your team, and then pick out a specific solution

• Why leading by example is not showing what you know but rather stepping up and admitting what you don’t know

• How failing fast and failing often can help you become a better professional and why none of us actually “have it together”

Timecodes:

• 6:00 - why curiosity and drive to learn are the only things you need to succeed in anything

• 8:20 - how to apply learnings from the past, what inspires Danelle today, and what she’s keen on learning more about

• 11:00 - why you gotta fail fast and fail forward, and how failure can positively shape your journey

• 13:50 - none of us “have it together” and even leaders fail

• 16:30 - if people are afraid to admit they don’t know something, you need to lead by example

• 24:28 - Panda Planner method for productivity

• 27:35 - unpopular opinions about engineering management

• 38:00 - no matter what you’re going through, you are not alone, and there are definitely mentors and people out there ready to help

Connect with Danielle:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tsunamino

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielleleong/

Connect with Darja:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darjagutnick/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/darjagutnick

Follow Bunch:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bunchai/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/bunch_HQ

Become a better leader in 2 minutes a day with BUNCH, the AI Leadership Coach. Download it for FREE on the App Store