Feb 2 • 1HR 6M

The World Builder Framework — with Aadil Maan (Humane) 🌎

Refactoring Podcast — Season 1 • Episode 2

Appears in this episode

Luca Rossi
Aadil Maan
Writes BR: Technical Program Manager’s Field Manual Subscribe
Interviews with world-class engineering leaders about writing great software and working well with humans.
Episode details
Transcript
Cross-post from Refactoring
I sit down with the extraordinary Luca Rossi of Refactoring.fm to talk about solving problems, the role of technical program managers, building products at a startup vs bigtech, and how to build great systems through the World Builder Framework which I have been working on for number of years. Luca's new podcast is going to be so great. Check out the line up of Season 1 with some extraordinary legends of the tech industry. -
Aadil Maan

This episode is brought to you by 📈 LinearB, the software engineering intelligence platform enabling engineering leaders improve their team’s operational efficiency, and align R&D investments to business goals.

🙋‍♂️ Today’s guest

Aadil Maan is Lead Engineering Program Manager at Humane and a big tech veteran, having worked at the likes of Google, Apple, and Blackberry.

He also writes the Building Romes newsletter, which acts as a field manual for TPMs and, I should say, any manager in tech, really.

The theme of today’s chat is The World Builder Framework — Aadil's own approach to problem solving and solutioning processes, frameworks and workflows for product and engineering teams.

Aadil's framework builds upon the experience of shipping hardware & software at big tech and fast paced startups, and gives a new lens for leaders to solve problems, instead of forcing rigid, off-the-shelf, traditional methodologies.

📌 Topics

Here are some things you will learn from this chat:

  1. 🗺️ What do TPMs do? — Aadil explains how Technical Program Managers connect different teams and ensure the strategic execution of projects, bridging the gap between engineering, product, design, and other functions.

  2. 🌎 The World Builder Framework — Aadil encourages a holistic approach to problem-solving by considering the three main elements of a given situation: Environment, People, and Physics.

  3. 🏢 Startups vs Big Tech — Having worked at both, Aadil explains startups vs big tech approaches to problem-solving. We discuss focus, and being thoughtful vs being a first mover.

  4. 🤖 Hardware vs Software — Hardware products are a totally different beast from software. Aadil explains how to ensure that hardware products are delivered, and how to create long roadmaps while retaining agility.

  5. 🎽 Joining a new team — Understanding people, the tech stack, building relationships, and identifying centers of power.

🎙️ Episode

You can watch the full episode on Youtube:

Or listen to it on Spotify, Apple, Overcast, or your podcast app of choice.

🙏 Thank you

Thank you so much for listening! Let us know what you think about the podcast in the comments or via email!

We just got started with the Podcast, so if you found this chat valuable, please consider subscribing to the show on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify.

Also, consider giving us a rating or leaving a review on the platform of your choice, as that really helps other listeners find the show.

See you next week! 👋
Luca

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