The Hero Culture Trap | Sowmya Subramanian

How do you build a culture that balances operational excellence with developer happiness? By shifting from firefighting to foresight.

Kick off Season 5 of Dev Interrupted with hosts Ben Lloyd Pearson, Andrew Zigler, and Dan Lines as they share their New Year's resolutions and welcome Sowmya Subramanian, whose leadership journey spans Google, YouTube, and Oracle, to the show. From redefining metrics like DORA to adapting processes like Fix-It Weeks, Soumya discusses dismantling the “hero” mindset that rewards firefighting, aligning engineering with business priorities, and creating rituals that scale teams without sacrificing creativity.

Tune in to learn how Sowmya’s holistic approach to metrics, culture, and tooling creates resilient teams and products that scale without breaking a sweat.

Show Notes:

• Beyond the DORA Frameworks Workshop (Jan. 29, 30)
• 2025 Engineering Benchmarks
• Follow Sowmya
• Follow Ben
• Follow Andrew

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