What Makes a Great VP of Engineering?

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This panel will bring together talent partners and CEOs who have hired and worked with multiple engineering leaders to talk about what makes a great VP of Engineering.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
SAM WHOLLEY - Partner @ Riviera
Sam is a Senior Partner with Riviera Partners, a premier Engineering, Product, and Design recruiting firm, where he focuses on Senior Engineering leadership searches for scaling companies. He started his career as a software engineer, and led software development and technology consulting teams at Fidelity Investments and RSM McGladrey. Prior to joining Riviera, he was COO of Frank Rimerman and Company, a leading regional advisory and accounting firm. He graduated with a BS in Computer Science and an MBA from Boston College.
EVAN KAPLAN - CEO @ InfluxData
Evan Kaplan is the CEO of InfluxData, creator of leading time-series database InfluxDB. He is a passionate entrepreneur and technology leader with more than twenty years of experience in the CEO role. Evan’s career spans from creating startups in his own garage to leading NASDAQ-listed companies generating nearly $200m in annual revenue. Before InfluxData, Evan served as Executive in Residence at Trinity Ventures, and President and CEO at iPass Corporation (global leader in Wi-Fi connectivity), and Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Aventail Corporation (pioneer of SSL VPNs, now part of Dell Corporation).
KARTHIK RAU - Founder and CEO @ SignalFx
Karthik is CEO and Co-founder of SignalFx. Previously he held leadership positions as VP Product Management and Worldwide Marketing at VMware and, most recently, as VP Products and Engineering at Delphix.
HOLLY ROSE FAITH - Talent Partner @ Greylock Partners
Holly Rose is a Talent Partner at NEA, focusing on human capital across the portfolio. She works closely with companies, helping them build their executive teams along with compensation, coaching, and leveraging best practices. NEA is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With more than $20 billion in cumulative committed capital since the firm’s founding in 1977, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 225 portfolio company IPOs and more than 375 acquisitions.
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[@jameshamilton3348]

This is a really great video. The real key take away for me was Eric Kaplan. You can really tell wealth of experience and sage wisdom. The other offered a lot of current and fresh pointers but Eric was evergreen and pure gold!

[@theengineeringleadershipco4623]

Next week we're releasing a podcast with Paul Dix (CTO & Founder @ InfluxData, maker of InfluxDB) who's on the executive team with Eric. Definitely another great conversation to check out

[@francescos7361]

Thanks , CTO is the best choice for me , as building engineer and urbanist who works on aware cities in optic , computer science . CTO , in teams , is a good choice in small teams .

[@angelsub9184]

What are the hard skill require to become CTO?

[@MayankShrivastava-1]

Is it only me to whom the left two in the panel made more sense than the right two?

[@praveensg]

You say any crap with a straight face and it seems to make sense. That HR lady gave typical behavioral questions as examples and its so easy to get swayed by that BS.

[@fareed1983]

@@praveensg ​ I could not help but notice the power moves demonstrated by the ones on the right with the instinctive subconscious mic grabbing game masterfully played.

[@gcklo]

I concur

[@jameshamilton3348]

I don't know who you mean by left two as there profiles we're not the same as the seating arrangement but I found Eric Kaplan and the women (the people in the middle) made the most sense. Ps technically that sentence was correct because you added to in front of whom but for future reference skip the whom and just use who. When it's used oddly or in a sentence it doesn't flow right like this one it puts of the whole flow of the sentence. When in doubt just us who.

[@praveengo]

Diversity is only gender? There is good number of Asians ,mainly Indians and Chinese working in technology sector. You have to represent them in leadership . What about veteran etc.

[@jameshamilton3348]

That's true. Diversity is about much more than gender. But also as a good leader you should hire the right person for the job. I speak from bad experience when I say don't hire just for diversity. Hiring a disabled, multi-racial, lesbian and transgender front end engineer who cannot use JavaScript might look good on paper, but the white boy from oxford with 16 years professional experience producing enterprise applications in react native might be a better hire.

[@praveengo]

@@jameshamilton3348 Totally agree with you it’s much more than gender and also don’t just hire just to meet diversity goals , that person has to be qualified with experience .

[@pacesferry]

They look absolutely sleepy