Welcome to the meetup for technical leaders! This event is hosted by The University of Texas at Austin.

⏰ Schedule

• 6:00pm - Arrive, refreshments & networking
• 6:30pm - Welcome (Konavis Smith, UT Austin)
• 6:35pm - Talk 1 (Marie Chatfield)
• 7:05pm - Break
• 7:35pm - Talk 2 (Dalia Havens)
• 8:05pm - Networking
• 9:00pm - Close

🌟 Speakers

Hosts: Nick Means (Engineering Manager, GitHub) and Brandon Hays (Engineering Manager)

Speaker: Marie Chatfield (Front-End Software Engineer, Pingboard)

Bio: Marie Chatfield writes code and poetry, sometimes at the same time. As a front-end engineering enthusiast, she’s currently helping the fine folks at Pingboard build the world’s best org chart software. While she doesn’t lead people or projects (yet), Marie does enjoy leading very easy rock climbing routes around the Austin area.

Talk: Individual Contributors Managing Interns: Name a More Iconic Duo, I’ll Wait

Make the most of your internship program by developing the software engineers and leaders you’ll want to hire tomorrow, starting today!

Internships can be an exciting opportunity for entry-level employees to gain valuable expertise and complete meaningful, and high-impact work. But the best internship experiences don’t happen by accident!

Encourage your interns to thrive and develop their skills by preparing a defined problem space, then giving them the freedom to choose their path within it—while still giving them regular feedback and guidance. Learn practical suggestions to help your interns excel from onboarding to offboarding, and every step along the way.

But wait, there’s more! Get the most out of your internship program by identifying individual contributors on your team to manage your interns. Hear the perspective of an aspiring Lead Dev on the value of being trusted to mentor an intern, and how to support your reports who are stepping into a formal mentorship role for the first time.

Speaker: Dalia Havens (Director of Engineering, GitLab)

Talk: Running a remote team and what metrics can do for you

GitLab is 100% distributed and remote company. As an engineering director, I would like to share the tools I use to measure the health of the teams reporting to me. Engineering metrics are extremely powerful but you need to find the ones and will allow you to measure the team's productivity as well as identify bottlenecks and challenges that the team need to focus on.

I will discuss how to develop those metrics and the importance of driving the team with the proper incentives. I will discuss how to introduce these metrics to your engineering team and get everyone to benefit from the visibility of an engineering development dashboard.

The Lead Developer is an international series of conferences and meetups for technical leaders in London, Berlin, Austin, New York and San Francisco. Find out more and check out 100+ talk videos on imposter syndrome, leading and scaling technical teams, and lots more at TheLeadDev.com.