Uma Chingunde is a seasoned engineering leader. She was previously the VP of Engineering at Render and engineering leader at Stripe and started her career at VMware. In this episode, Uma shares her advice on how to balance uptime and reliability with feature release cadence, staying level-headed through engineering incidents, and how startups that are selling to the engineering function should think about showing value in the post-ZIRP era. Topics discussed: - Uma's background and journey into computer science and the tech industry - Uma's time at VMware, including her transition from individual contributor to engineering manager - Uma's move to Stripe and the company's approach to balancing uptime/reliability with feature velocity - Advice on building high-performance engineering teams - Thoughts on the changing landscape for startups selling to engineering teams - Career advice and Uma's framework for evaluating new opportunities Links: Follow Uma on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/umachingunde Follow Uma on X - https://x.com/umachingunde Brick by Brick is presented by Garuda Ventures (https://garuda.vc). About Garuda Ventures: Garuda Ventures is a B2B-focused pre-seed and seed venture fund. Garuda is a first-check firm and aims to earn the right to be a founder's first call as they go about building their companies. To learn more, visit https://www.garuda.vc Today's episode was hosted by Arpan Punyani. Find Arpan on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/arpanpunyani/), Substack (https://arpanpunyani.substack.com/) or X/Twitter (https://x.com/arpanpunyani) Brick by Brick is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts & Spotify. Hit 'subscribe' to stay up to date with new episodes!