Tyson Singer (Head of Tech & Platforms @ Spotify) joins us to unpack how Spotify is transforming its product development lifecycle across creation, experimentation and maintenance to shift from "localized speed" to "systematic speed." We explore why the industry’s current obsession with the "Build It" phase of development is shortsighted, and how Spotify is aggressively deploying AI in the "Think It" (prototyping/strategy) and "Maintain It" (fleet management) phases. Tyson also details the internal tools driving this shift, including AiKA and Honk, and shares why the future of engineering relies on moving from I-shaped specialists to T-shaped generalists.

Tyson Singer is the SVP of Technology & Platforms at Spotify, where he leads technology infrastructure, developer experience, cybersecurity, and finance IT. Tyson is the executive behind Spotify’s internal developer portal, Backstage, and Spotify’s experimentation system, Confidence, which are now both commercially available. He has a background as an engineer, architect, and product lead, and he holds a Master’s in Computer Science from Stanford University. Tyson is also an avid outdoor adventurer.

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• Tyson’s 9-year journey @ Spotify: From the "crucible" of hyper-growth to leading Tech & Platforms (3:46)
• The pivot from "localized speed" to "systematic speed" (7:27)
• Core principles of Spotify’s Platform org: Partnering with customers & "Taking the pain away" (10:37)
• The "Think it, Build it, Ship it, Tweak it" lifecycle framework & why the industry obsession with "Build It" (coding agents) is missing the bigger picture (14:57)
• How Spotify is investing in the "Think It" phase: AI prototyping with deep business context (16:49)
• AiKA (AI Knowledge Assistant): Context engineering for humans and bots (18:47)
• "Honk": Spotify’s internal framework for large-scale automated code changes (22:17)
• Addressing the decline of code quality and the bottleneck of human PR reviews (25:50)
• Probabilistic vs. Deterministic code reviews: A new approach to quality checks (29:43)
• Identifying bottlenecks to company value outside of R&D (Legal, Licensing, etc.) (32:12)
• Why systems change is fundamentally about people and identity shifts (35:57)
• Rapid fire questions (38:49)

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/

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It started with a simple idea from James Tyack: “What if we hosted a hackathon at ELC Annual?” The result was a unique experiment where 14 senior engineering leaders stepped away from strategy to build and ship functioning apps in one weekend, unlocking new insights on AI-native workflows, "vibe coding," and the future of engineering. In this episode, we deconstruct the entire hackathon operational playbook, sharing lessons on everything from “best failure awards” and async collaboration structures to structuring ideation periods for maximum business alignment. Beyond the logistics, we explore how getting hands-on helped these leaders overcome imposter syndrome and why "rolling up your sleeves" is now a prerequisite for leading effective engineering teams. Plus, James shares how he plans to evolve the hackathon format at ELC and beyond. If you’ve been curious about leveraging hackathons to drive innovation, expose your team to new tools, or evolve how your org builds, this episode provides the blueprint for successful implementation.

James is an engineering manager with a passion for people, technology, and learning. He's built and led distributed, diverse teams of engineers across locations and timezones for 10 years. James believes strongly in the value of diversity and championing a sense of belonging for everyone, from day 1. He's well versed in growth strategy, chaos engineering, major incident response, and blameless practice, and culture grounded by trust and psychological safety. He leads the Growth Acquisition team at Coursera where he's proud to be part of an organization that's transforming lives through learning. Previously, James enjoyed building and leading the Growth and Integrations engineering teams at PagerDuty.

Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.

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• The results of ELC’s first-ever hackathon: 14 leaders shipping fully functional apps (2:21)
• The “Scrappy” beginning: Extending the invitation and early community engagement (4:50)
• The most surprising insights: Problem solving for “life outside of work” and micromanaging AI agents (5:42)
• Navigating the shifting boundaries between product, engineering, and management roles (8:43)
• James’ personal journey: Building 5 apps in 5 hours to stay relevant and relatable (10:05)
• Deconstructing the Hackathon structure: The “Take-Home Assignment” approach (16:16)
• The Hall of Fame: Creating artifacts to recognize contribution (18:00)
• Iterating on the format: Pivots made for the next hackathon iteration at Coursera (18:47)
• The importance of a 2-week ideation period for alignment (20:59)
• A recap of the playbook: Seeding ideas, easy tooling, and safe deployment (22:15)
• The future of hackathons: Cross-functional participation beyond engineering (26:46)
• Rapid Fire Questions (28:15)

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.