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Camille Fournier

1 episode

Episodes

The things engineers are desperate for PMs to understand | Camille Fournier (“The Manager’s Path”)

Sep 15, 20241h 23m

Guest: Camille Fournier - Author of "The Manager’s Path" and a respected technology executive. Camille has held leadership roles such as CTO of Rent The Runway and VP of Technology at Goldman Sachs, and is known for her insights into engineering management and platform teams. Key Takeaways: Credit Sharing: PMs should avoid hoarding credit and instead share recognition with engineers, allowing them to present and speak about their contributions. Understanding Details: PMs need to appreciate and understand the technical details of projects to show empathy and respect for engineers' work. Avoiding Rewrites: Major system rewrites are often traps; they underestimate migration time and the complexity of existing systems. Focus on incremental improvements. Platform Team Success: Effective platform teams require a mix of software engineers, systems engineers, and product managers to focus on operational excellence and measurable impact. Work-Life Balance: Encourage focused work over long hours. Regularly audit tasks to ensure focus on what truly matters and delegate effectively to empower teams. Topics Covered: PM-engineer relationship, platform engineering, management challenges, work-life balance, system rewrites, engineering leadership.

Notable Quotes

“Engineers sometimes think that they don't get the credit for their work because the PM takes all the glory and all the credit for the project that they really worked very hard on.”

Credit sharing

“When you act like [details] don't matter and you don't care about them, it just shows a real lack of empathy for the work that engineers are doing.”

Empathy in management

“If you don't challenge yourself, if you don't take risks, you'll never grow.”

Personal growth