Summary
Often companies struggle with the role of engineering leadership as they evolve and grow. Some try to avoid formal management altogether for too long and then overreact adding layers of leaders who revisit and slow decision making. As AI changes software engineering, teams will become smaller, more focused, and efficient. Leadership needs to meet the challenges of the new environment, rather than clinging to old tropes. There are not set answers today but we need to lay out the challenges and the possible solutions.
Join Bill Coughran, Partner at Sequoia Capital and former SVP of Engineering at Google for a fireside chat to discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Speakers
Bill Coughran works as a founders' coach and partner at Sequoia Capital to help build spectacular technology-centric companies. Previously, Bill was Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google with oversight of Chrome, YouTube, maps, google.com, underlying infrastructure systems, and security.
Bret Reckard is Talent Partner at The General Partnership (TheGP), a hands-on venture firm working alongside ambitious founders in talent, engineering, go-to-market, and product. He leads TheGP’s Talent vertical, matching foundational leaders, early engineers, and key specialists across the portfolio. Before this role, Bret spent over a decade at Sequoia Capital leading Talent and Network, where he helped hundreds of founders at companies like Stripe, Confluent, Retool and DoorDash build their early teams.
on ELC Annual 2025