Engineering Founders cover art

Engineering Founders

Engineering Founders

Written by: The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)
Listen for free

The show for engineering leaders making the leap to start their own company! We dive into the stories, pivotal moments and critical insights from former eng leaders turned founders, that helped them take those early leaps to launch their own company! Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • How to know when your company needs to pivot and the signals/principles that will help guide you through pivoting w/ Pete Nichols, Lizzie Matusov, and Tony Dong

    How to know when your company needs to pivot and the signals/principles that will help guide you through pivoting w/ Pete Nichols, Lizzie Matusov, and Tony Dong
    Jun 4 2026
    In this special Engineering Founders episode, we’re featuring a live panel of some of the ELC community’s longstanding members who share insights from their founder journeys: Pete Nichols (Co-Founder @ Lightfield), Lizzie Matusov (Co-Founder / CEO @ Quotient), and Tony Dong (Founder & CEO @ Propel Code AI). They dive into what it was like exploring their first big ideas and then strategies for identifying when it’s time to pivot. They cover validating if you’re working on the right problem and using customer research to determine product road map. They also share go-to-market and selling insights, finding your first customers, and getting users willing to pay for your product. This ep also features an audience Q&A from fellow ELC community members! ABOUT PETE NICHOLS Pete Nichols is the Head of Core Product Engineering at Pinterest, where he leads the development of inspiring product experiences and Android/iOS/Web/API platform technology. Prior to Pinterest, Pete spent 15 years at Electronic Arts in development leadership roles for The Sims and SimCity. Pete holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University. ABOUT LIZZIE MATUSOV Lizzie Matusov is the co-founder and CEO of Quotient, a developer tool that surfaces the friction slowing down engineering teams and resolves it directly. Her team also co-authors Research Driven Engineering Leadership, a newsletter that uses research to answer interesting questions on engineering leadership and strategy. She previously worked in various engineering roles at Red Hat and Invitae, and has an MS in Engineering Sciences and MBA from Harvard. ABOUT TONY DONG Tony is the Founder & CEO of Propel, an AI engineering agent that integrates into your team’s workflows to automate engineering tasks and elevate developer productivity. Before Propel, Tony served as the VP of Engineering at Rippling, where he led the development of the company's Platform and HR products. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Tony was also the founder and CTO of a YC-backed startup and held key engineering roles at Periscope, TellApart, and Twitter. SHOW NOTES: Tony and Lizzie’s first big ideas / what they’ve pivoted to today (6:39)Pete describes his first idea then major pivot (8:49)How the panelists view pivots as founders (10:35)Identifying signs of friction that signal it’s time to pivot (13:48)Tony explains the code review / rediscovery process post-pivot (16:16)Follow insights derived from customer problems & what they’re willing to pay for (18:16)Pete’s advice to address pain points & work on what is scalable (21:17)Navigating the balance between true signals of success / trusting your gut (22:50)Frameworks for validating the right product, market & customer segment (24:25)Insights on selling to enterprise / eng leader customers (26:54)Finding early adopters to demonstrate the product in real time (28:29)Lizzie’s validation method @ Quotient (31:38)How a newsletter became an inbound discovery channel (34:01)Benefits of building in public (36:05)Understanding the principle of speed to value (37:47)Identify your product’s hardest use & build an intentional process for it (40:59)Getting your first customer / when go to market is working (44:46)Knowing when you have the wrong product or founder fit (47:52)Q&A: Identifying when not to pivot (52:13)Getting customers through a customer residency program (55:04)What doesn’t work when it comes to getting your first customers (58:56)Tips for finding a partner you trust (1:02:16)Tony’s path to finding his co-founder (1:04:12)The co-founder journey @ Lightfield (1:06:00)Navigating “Wizard of Oz-ing” challenges in startups (1:08:39)Lizzie’s process for identifying / addressing customer “paper cuts” (1:10:04)Incorporating secret prototypes within your product (1:12:21) LINKS AND RESOURCES The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick’s quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak.50 Co-Founder Dating Questions This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Determining bets, using customer insights to pivot, and gaining developer buy in & trust w/ Tomas Reimers @ Graphite

    Determining bets, using customer insights to pivot, and gaining developer buy in & trust w/ Tomas Reimers @ Graphite
    May 21 2026
    Tomas Reimers, Co-Founder & CPO @ Graphite, reveals his journey to becoming a founder and some of the major moments from Graphite’s product development story. He dissects frameworks for determining when it’s time to quit your full-time job to pursue becoming a founder and analyzing the costs vs. benefits of that decision. We cover how to decide what customer problems to solve, understanding how software development trends impact what you’re building, and product market fit and selling considerations. Lastly, Tomas shares valuable strategies when it comes to selling to developers. ABOUT TOMAS REIMERS Tomas Reimers is the CPO and co-founder of Graphite, the a16z and Anthropic-backed AI code review platform that Cursor acquired in December 2025. Previously, he was an engineer at Facebook. Passionate about advancing developer velocity, Tomas holds a BS in Computer Science from Harvard University. Unblocked: The context engine your coding agents are missing. Give your coding agents the context your best engineers have. Your agents can read code, but they don’t know how your team works. Rules and MCPs give access to information but not understanding. That’s why you still have to tell them where to look and what to look for. Unblocked gives your agents the history, conventions, and decisions behind your code so they generate mergeable output without the back and forth. It automatically surfaces the right context for every task, so agents stay on track without the set up tax or the correction loops. getunblocked.com/elc SHOW NOTES: The origin story behind Graphite (1:05)Signs that it’s time to quit your job / found a company (4:03)How Tomas & his co-founders knew it was time to break up with their jobs (5:40)Understand what leaving your job will mean career-growth wise (7:33)Embracing regret minimization (9:28)Pros & cons of developing in blue ocean vs. red ocean areas as a founder (11:49)Strategies for determining what software to build / how is software dev evolving (14:00)Tomas’s framework for determining bets (15:50)Recommendations for selling as a founder (17:52)Identifying if sales isn’t working or if product market fit is off (20:35)Using customer insights to experiment & make a PMF pivot (23:05)Why developers don’t want to be sold to, they want to be taught (24:42)How to apply teaching vs. selling into early GTM strategy (27:20)Utilizing demonstrations to gain developer buy in & trust (29:24)What Tomas is looking forward to in Graphite’s future / software dev in general (32:04)Rapid fire questions (33:34) LINKS AND RESOURCES The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick’s quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak.Founding Sales - The Startup Sales Handbook - rhe distillation of Pete Kazanjy’s experience at his first software startup, TalentBin going from a founder with a product marketing and product management background to early sales guy, early sales manager, and eventual post-acquisition sales leader at Monster Worldwide in addition to his later experience founding Modern Sales, the nation’s largest sales operations, enablement, and leadership community.Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts - Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
    Show More Show Less
    38 mins
  • Applying Agentic AI to the Supply Chain, Building Systems to Withstand Chaos, and Leveraging your Curiosity w/ Pooja Brown @ Inventry.ai

    Applying Agentic AI to the Supply Chain, Building Systems to Withstand Chaos, and Leveraging your Curiosity w/ Pooja Brown @ Inventry.ai
    May 7 2026

    In this episode of Engineering Founders, Pooja Brown (Founder @ Inventry.ai) shares her founder journey and insights on balancing being a founder & technologist, especially within the mid-market manufacturing industry. We cover why founders need to lead with curiosity as they seek out customer problems to solve, strategies for solving complex problems related to supply chain, and strategies for selling your products. Pooja also dissects important fundraising tactics, how to identify areas that AI tooling can enhance within your business, reading customer signals, and bolstering your engineering skills by leveling up business capabilities.

    ABOUT POOJA BROWN

    Pooja Brown is a technology executive and founder focused on building AI-native platforms that power real-world operations across industries. She has led engineering at scale at companies like Stitch Fix and DocuSign, building systems that combine data, workflows, and machine learning to drive everything from personalization and supply chain to digital agreements used by hundreds of thousands of businesses.Her experience spans multiple verticals including retail, enterprise SaaS, education technology, and real estate, where she has consistently focused on embedding AI directly into core business systems rather than layering it on top.

    Pooja is currently the founder and CEO of Inventry.ai, where she is building autonomous AI agents that help mid-market manufacturers run procurement and supply chain operations more effectively. Across her career, she has focused on turning complex operational data into systems that don’t just generate insights, but actually drive decisions and execution.

    ABOUT INVENTRY.AI

    Inventry.ai swiftly detects time sensitive supply chain issues, prioritizes the risk, automates resolutions, and facilitates buyer-supplier collaboration, keeping your supply chain running smoothly and your customers satisfied.

    SHOW NOTES:
    • What shaped Pooja’s entrepreneurship journey & background (3:20)
    • Looking for the right problem & leading with curiosity (6:47)
    • Insights on solving problems related to supply chain (10:42)
    • Building systems for chaos / complexity (12:46)
    • Adopting a beginner’s mindset when solving complex problems (15:40)
    • Dissecting fundraising strategies & decision making (19:28)
    • Emerging business patterns that eng leaders need to capitalize on (26:32)
    • Understanding how customers make decisions on what products to adopt (29:09)
    • Selling strategies for the mid-market manufacturing industry (37:08)
    • Integrating AI tools to augment current business capabilities (41:03)
    • Engineering skills that enhance sales processes (44:43)
    • Communication frameworks when working with customers (47:21)
    • Rapid fire questions (50:06)

    This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

    Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

    Jerry Li - Co-Host

    Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

    Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

    Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
    Show More Show Less
    55 mins
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet