Episodes
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EL039 – How to become a better leader by letting go
One of the struggles many engineering leaders have is knowing how and when to let go and allow their teams to move forward with their daily work. It can be incredibly difficult to know how to transition from working in the team to working on the team. This leads to micromanagement, impaired...
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EL038 – How to find (or become) an engineering mentor
Mentorship in the world of engineering is an incredible tool. It helps those being mentored improve job performance, satisfaction, and achievement of long-term goals. For the mentor, it helps connect with earlier stage professionals, organize their thoughts and frameworks around their work, and...
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EL037 – Demystifying Sales and Selling for Engineers
Sales and business development are key skills for engineers who want to grow in their careers. For many senior engineers and engineering managers, helping to grow their company through new business is an absolute necessity. In this episode, you'll learn what sales is really all about, why it's...
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EL036 – Culture of excellence: How to build brilliant engineering teams through incredible culture
Culture is the glue that holds an organization together. It's the unwritten, ethereal rules of engagement - the collection of "how things work around here". Today, I speak with Mark Kinsella, VP of Engineering at Opendoor about organizational culture: what it is, why it's important to engineering...
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EL035 – Women In Engineering: Combating Bias and Redefining Success for a Better Future
In today's interview, I speak with Stephanie Slocum, author of She Engineers and founder of Engineers rising about supporting women in engineering through addressing unconscious bias, redefining success at creating a better, more inclusive future. See the full show notes at...
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EL034 – Leading Engineers to Success in Hybrid Workplaces
In this episode of the Engineering & Leadership podcast, I interview psychologist Dr. Robin Rosenberg about the risks posed by hybrid workplaces, how to overcome them, and the future of hybrid work. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode34
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EL033 – The Engineer’s Guide to Public Speaking (Without Getting Awkwardly Sweaty)
Today, Neil Thompson of Teach The Geek shares his advice for engineers everywhere on why public speaking is so important for engineers and how to improve as a public speaker. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode33
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EL032 – Tired Tires and the Circular Economy: How Wastefront is Saving the World One Tire at a Time
Today, I speak with Wastefront's CTO, Henrik Selstam, about his company and their mission to address one of the world's most pressing environmental challenges: dealing with end-of-life tires. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode32
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EL031 – Leadership is Language: David Marquet on The Power Behind What You Say (And What You Don’t)
Today, I speak with David Marquet on the importance of the language we use as leaders, what's wrong with the old way of engaging with our teams, and how to drive performance through what we say. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode31
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EL030 – Leading Yourself: How to Take Control Of Your Career and Do What You Love
In this episode of the Engineering & Leadership podcast, I speak with Dr. Ben Ritter about the importance of leading yourself and how to start if you've never tried. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode30 Download our free guide to leadership for engineers -...
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EL029 – Metric Madness: The 5 Most Common Problems With Engineering Metrics and How to Fix Them
Today, I'm going to share five common issues I see with engineering project metrics in professional practice, and how to address them on your projects. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode29 Download our free guide to leadership for engineers - Engineering...
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EL028 – How to launch a successful tech start-up
any of us dream of going it alone one day - of shedding the 9 to 5 and trading in your cubicle for a desk in a garage. Society lionizes the likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, and it's incredibly tempting to imagine what life might be like as a successful entrepreneur. But what's it really like to...
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EL027 – How to change the world through a mission-driven team
One of the hallmarks of a great leader is the ability to draw people together in the name of something greater than themselves. They establish bold missions for their teams and paint a vivid picture of what a better future could look like if they were to succeed. For Vivian Shen, CEO and…
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EL026 – Learning, Teaching, and the Pursuit of Engineering Management Excellence
Many of us think of our lives in as though they move between discrete phases. First we get educated, then we work, then we enjoy life in retirement. My guest in today's show turns that notion on its head by combining work, education, and a zest for life all at the same time. Dr. Lucas Marino is a...
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EL025 – Performing a Hard Reset on Life: How One Engineer Went From Rock Bottom To True Happiness
We have all heard that necessity is the mother of invention. If there's any good that has come from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that it has forced many of us to re-evaluate our lives, take stock of where things stand, and ask some tough questions: Are we living the lives we should be? Are we...
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EL024 – What Teaching at MIT for 20 Years Taught This Engineer About Success
We all go to school expecting to learn the skills we need to succeed in the real world. As engineers, we probably felt confident that would end our degrees equipped with everything we needed to build strong careers and climb the ranks. Armed with knowledge of AutoCAD and second-order differential...
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EL023 – Leadership Lessons from a CTO
In today's episode, I speak with Andrew Hinkelman, founder of Priority-1 Group, and former CTO of Parametric, about leadership and management in the technical world, and how to set yourself up for success as a leader in tech. See the full show notes at...
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EL022 – Managing Brilliant Jerks
In today's episode, I interview Dr. Katrina Burrus about the challenges technical experts face when moving in to management, the importance of cultural fit, and the kinds of skills you need to succeed as a manager. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode22
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EL021 – From the Shop Floor to the Corner Office
In this week’s episode, I interview Josh Mathias, the Managing Director at the Hythe Group, a multi-disciplinary engineering firm from the UK on leadership, management, and his ascent from the shop floor to the corner office. See the full show notes at...
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EL020 – Five Things They Don’t Tell You When You Become an Engineering Manager
In this week’s episode, I share five things that nobody tells you when you transition into engineering management. It's a summary of the biggest lessons learned in my own career, and how to put them to work for you. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode20
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EL019 – How to future-proof your engineering career
In this week’s episode, I share three strategies for future-proofing your career so that you can move forward with confidence, even in a pandemic. You’ll hear advice on gaining career clarity, beating impostor syndrome, and establishing yourself as a leader, along with my co-host Jeff Perry. See...
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EL018 – One Engineer’s Mission to Make 1 Billion People Happier
In this week’s episode, I Interview Steve Foran, a progressional engineer whose career took a major turn nearly 15 years ago, when he launched a company to help make people happier through gratitude. Steve’s mission is simple, yet incredibly daunting: Make 1 Billion Happier People. I ask Steve...
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EL017 – The CIA’s Guide to Making Engineers Miserable
In this episode, I explore a WWII-era guide to "Simple Sabotage" published by the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. It explains how disgruntled citizens of foreign nations can do little things to be disruptive and cause trouble. As it so happens, the section on disrupting the…
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EL016 – How to give useful feedback without it being awkward for everybody
In this episode, I interview Pam Scott, Founder of MentorLoft.com, about feedback. We discuss common problems that she sees in her coaching practice and gives practical guidance on how to address those problems. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode16.
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EL015 – The Art of Prioritization
In this episode, I give a sneak peak into my engineering productivity course and give away five of my best tips to help engineers prioritize their work. If you'd like to learn more, see the show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode15.
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EL014 – Leadership, Writing, and Side Projects with Engineer and Author Matthew G. Dick
In this episode, I have a conversation with Matthew G. Dick, author of SEED: A Hard Science Fiction Novel about Survival, Colonization, and Leadership. Matthew is an engineering manager who recently completed his first novel. He shares his experience writing the book, how he balanced work with a...
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EL013 – How To Find Your Dream Engineering Job (Even During A Pandemic)
In this episode, I interview Sol Rosenbaum of theengineeringmentor.com about strategies for finding your next engineering job, especially during a pandemic. We cover modern job search techniques, networking, using LinkedIn, interview skills, and much more. Find all the links and resources…
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EL012 – 8 Simple Strategies To Master Your Inbox
In this episode, I provide 8 of the specific strategies I use to process email, keep my inbox clean, and focus more time on what really matters - getting work done.
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EL011 – Beating Impostor Syndrome with Jeff Perry
In this episode, I discuss impostor syndrome with Jeff Perry from morethan-engineering.com. We dig in to what it is, how it affects engineers, and how to manage it if you're ever faced with it in your own career. See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode11
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EL010 – Recognition: The Superpower You Didn’t Know You Had
In this episode, I discuss the the importance of recognition, how it can influence your engineering team for the better, the risks of not recognizing your engineers, and simple - yet effective - ways to recognize people, even during a pandemic.
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EL009 – 4 Reasons Going Off-Grid Will Supercharge Your Mind
In this episode, I discuss the value of disconnecting and getting away. Disrupting your normal work habits to make time and space to think deeply can yield wonderful results in terms of generating new and innovative ideas. Everyone needs time away from the office.
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EL008 – The Life-changing Magic of Saying No
In today’s episode, we talk about the life-changing magic of saying no - the most powerful word in your professional vocabulary.
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EL007 – The Honest Truth About When Engineers Can Lead
In this episode, I explore the difference between management and leadership and explain how engineers can lead at any stage in their career. I also give concrete examples of how you can lead no matter what career stage you're in.
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EL 006 – (Re)Introduction to the Engineering and Leadership Podcast
In this episode, we relaunch the podcast and tell you a bit about what to expect in the coming weeks.
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EL 005 – The engineer’s productivity formula
In this podcast/ blog post, you’ll hear all about the formula that I’ve developed over the last decade to really improve my productivity as an engineer. It uses a three-tiered approach that makes it different from most of the strategies you read about today. Below, I list the links that I mention...
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EL 004 – The importance of money for engineers
Welcome to the fourth episode of the Engineering and Leadership podcast! This episode digs into why understanding money is incredibly important for engineers, and goes into the most important thing to know about money. It would be great to get your feedback on the show. Please leave a comment at...
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EL 003 – Why you need to love your job
In the show today, I go through the five top reasons you need to love your job. The five reasons are: 1. At least a half of your waking hours spent at work, so it would be good to actually enjoy that time. 2. It will be very difficult for you to invest in your career if you don’t love your work.…
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EL 002 – Is it better to become CEO or a technical Guru?
Welcome to the second episode of the Engineering and Leadership podcast! This episode covers whether it is better to become a manager or a technical specialist as you move forward in your career as an engineer. I cover the pros and cons of each path and help you decide which might be best for you.
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EL 001 – Introduction and Productivity Hacks
Well, I've gone and done it and started a podcast. This is the very first episode of the Engineering and Leadership Podcast. In this episode, I introduce the show, and share 5 productivity hacks that I use to squeeze more out of my week than the average engineer.
About this show
Helping engineers thrive. Engineering || Management || Leadership || Productivity
Hosted by
Pat Sweet, P.Eng, MBA, CSEP, PMP
Categories