Engineering Culture, Operational Excellence & Designing for Scale
Summary
In this session, we explore lessons on engineering culture and operational excellence across experiences from large companies to startups with Shibani Sanan (CTO @ Ladder), Rakesh Rajan (VPE @ Rippling) & Thanos Diacakis (Software Engineering Effectiveness Coach & Technical Leader @ Cosmic Teacups)!
They’ll share insights on scaling systems and platform strategy to encourage speed, innovation and to minimize dependencies. Plus perspectives on shaping culture for engineering and operational excellence covering expectations for managers, production operational reviews, rewarding excellence, prioritization and more.
Speakers
Shibani Sanan is Ladder’s CTO, overseeing engineering, IT, and Security. Shibani has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry delivering scalable and high-impact products. She has experience building products and leading teams at companies large and small, including 16 years at Google where she ran an 1000+ engineering organization as VP of Engineering at Google. Before joining Ladder, Shibani was Head of Engineering at Plaid. She brings deep technical expertise, a robust leadership experience and a wealth of expertise in scaling massive organizations. Prior to her experience at Google, she worked in various engineering roles for a variety of technology companies in India and the US.
Rakesh Rajan is VP of Engineering at Rippling, a modern platform that eliminates the friction of running a business globally. Prior to Rippling, Rakesh managed multiple engineering teams at Uber — including those for the Uber App, SuperApp, and Rider Growth — through periods of hyper-growth leading up to its IPO. He brings nearly two decades of experience across consumer-tech, ad-tech, and enterprise domains.
Thanos Diacakis is a technology leader specializing in engineering excellence. He currently coaches software engineering teams to reignite their passion for the craft and transform their effectiveness in building and delivering software. Previously, Thanos was a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Included Health, focusing on technical architecture and company-wide initiatives. At Uber, he provided technical leadership for the bikes and scooters, scaling it to 45k vehicles and generating $150m+ in revenue. He holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Imperial College London and has authored seven US patents.
