Fireside Chat with David Dettmer — EVP Product & Engineering at Rev
Last week we hosted a fireside chat with David Dettmer author and EVP, Product & Engineering at Rev, a venture-backed startup in San Francisco. Rev converts audio and video to text with their unique combination of AI and people. They have a dual mission of delivering great services to businesses while also giving talented freelancers fulfilling work-from-home jobs.The conversation was moderated by Mission Co-Founder & CEO Stéphane Rossi. Our Speaker Series events are open to all Mission members. The goal is to give our members access to learn from and talk to leaders in the software engineering and tech industries.
David has been a leader in product engineering for startups for more than twenty years. He’s built several successful software engineering teams from scratch and consulted with hundreds of startup founders on how to hire, build, and optimize high-performing engineering teams. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with his family and has even raised his own engineer, his daughter.
They started the fireside chat by discussing David’s new book, Raising Engineers, where he outlines how to create a culture that reflects your business, cultivate a strong team, and hire the right people to build impactful products. “The reason I wrote it is because everyday I talk to founders, and they say I can raise the money but I don’t know where to start when it comes to hiring a team”, said David. He was noticing that he was having these conversations over and over again, so it just made sense to write a book that could help founders everywhere. He wrote about what he wishes he could have known when he first became a software engineer and as he built his first team.
David then shared some of his insights to becoming EVP of Engineering and Product at Rev. After graduating from college he worked for several small startups and really loved the camaraderie of working on small teams. What came naturally to him was working with customers and being the layer between what needed to be built and how to build it. He really leaned into communications and thinking about developing other people’s careers, which jump-started his as a leader. It can be difficult for some to see a path from Engineer to Manager or Leader, David’s advice that he learned throughout his career was to raise your hand more often. Organizations need this! There may not be a position open at the time, but good organizations will start getting you involved sooner and developing you. Another suggestion he made was to ask for opportunities to mentor people TODAY, even brand new senior engineers need someone to help get them up to speed on how a business operates. You’ll know management is for you if you gain joy from helping others succeed, solve their problems, and progress in their career.
Moving on from discussions around his career and how to evolve as a manager, Stéphane delved into a framework that David refers to several times in his book — Purpose, Autonomy, Mastery. This is a framework to keep engineers happy, motivated, and engaged. The purpose is about doing things that matter or that have a positive impact, autonomy is being able to figure things out independently, and mastery is about being the best at your craft.
In Raising Engineers, David says, “If you ask most engineers what they want to be in 5 years, it’s not a CTO or business owner, it’s a better engineer.” It can be the same with engineers. What engineers mean is that they most want to be able to solve harder problems with autonomy and with greater efficiency.” He mentioned to Stéphane that he tends to lean more towards individuals who are trying to hit that third point — mastery. He aims to hire people who are trying to grow as engineers, because the rest will follow.
The discussion wrapped up with a great piece of advice to those who manage engineers or want to become managers. Always ask “what’s on your mind” instead of “how are you”. Those are the conversations that really unlock some of the truths. People don’t always wake up on the right side of the bed, so “how are you” often can’t get to the root of the problem and as managers we want to help remove barriers so you can be the best you can be.
Curious about who our next guest speaker will be? Join Mission, a members-only community that helps senior engineers from across the globe continue to grow. By providing access to a network of vetted peers, tools to give you insights and feedback, and opportunities to build core products with a team that’s designed to just work, Mission can give you the best possible working environment for an independent engineer.
